


Bond Magic

by Bitsy, capitalnineteen



Series: The Last Bond Dragon [2]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dragons, F/M, Messy Clownshoes Moments, Pining, Secret Identity, Sending Crystal (Dragon Age) Sex, Two Person Love Triangle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-12
Packaged: 2021-03-17 23:41:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 24,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29233962
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitsy/pseuds/Bitsy, https://archiveofourown.org/users/capitalnineteen/pseuds/capitalnineteen
Summary: After finally meeting the dragon a few days into the cycle, Lup has covertly snuck away to meet him roughly once a month since. Now, as the cycle comes to a close, she confronts her feelings for the immortal Sildar as Barry Bluejeans deals with the repercussions of the shift in bonds.
Relationships: Barry Bluejeans/Lup
Series: The Last Bond Dragon [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2137935
Comments: 19
Kudos: 42





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Tangerine_Catnip for letting Bitsy and I continue this story, to Grumby for beta reading, and for our lovely TAZ Live Readings discord group for hanging out with us regularly for readings and events and for loving Blupjeans like we do! <3

Fuck, fuck, fucking fuck.

Nine times now, he’d managed to sneak off the ship to meet Lup. He was overdue for getting busted, honestly. But that didn’t make it better. He’d thought the kitchen would be empty at this hour. When Taako was cooking he usually either had something going for hours ahead of time or was a whirlwind at the last minute throwing something together. Two hours before dinner was usually fine.

But no. There Taako was at the stove. 

“Hey, Barold,” he said, glancing up before returning his attention to what he was stirring.

“Hey, Taako. That, uh, that smells good.”

“It’s pan cleaner.”

“Oh, uh, well…”

“Joke, Barold. Working on this damn enchilada sauce. Stupid spices on this plane…” He drifted off, mumbling to himself.

“Ah, well, uh, good luck.” Gods, he needed to stop stammering. It made him so much more suspicious sounding. 

“Have you seen Lup?” Taako asked, not looking up.

“Um, uh, well, actually… she uh, she went to get some samples I needed for a test I was running but I told her the wrong thing. I was hoping to find her in here, try and let her know before she left. Guess I’ll just have to try and catch her.”

“No offense, B, but that seems unlikely.”

“Yeah, well, probably. Anyway. Guess we’ll both miss dinner.”

“Pfft,” Taako said, waving a hand. “Go on then, your loss.”

Satisfied that went as well as he could have hoped, Barry hurried off the ship himself before he could run into anyone else who might pay closer attention to his excuses than Taako did while he was cooking.

\---

Lup summoned her Phantom Steed, and with a toss of its spectral head and that never-ending request for oats, they were off.

This plane was really stunning, honestly. The vegetation here ran on chlorophyll, just like at home, but chlorophyll that made healthy plants purple rather than green. Vast fields of lavender grass waved softly under the diamond blue sky, proud and majestic oak trees boasted broad leaves of deepest purple, it was such an aesthetic! 

Too bad they still hadn’t found the Light. A pang of regret hit her, that this lovely purple world would soon be lost to the Hunger.

Her spectral equine carried her to the secluded spot she’d agreed to meet Sildar, and when she got there, she felt a little...breathless. Restless. Finger-combing her hair back into a semblance of order, she settled down on a nearby rock and started scanning the skies. Gods, she felt like a nervous virgin at her prom. Which was ridiculous, because falling for a  _ dragon _ was a surefire way to get not only her heart broken, but other body parts as well. And she’d paid a lot of gold for this body!

As the sun began to lower to the north (another weird quirk of this plane, the sunrises and sunsets flowed south to north), Lup fiddled with her notebook, scribbling down ideas, sketches, pressed flowers. She was no Lucretia, sure, but she kept her own records, her own memories of this strange trip they’d been on for almost thirty years now.

And lo and behold, her pencil moved without her really giving it permission to, and she was sketching Sildar from the side, his long snout and beautiful eyes.

Woof, she was a mess.

\---

There was definitely something that Taako was wrong about. Catching up to Lup wouldn’t be a problem at all. For Barry Bluejeans, maybe. But not for Sildar of the Crystal flight. 

What would be a problem were his clothes. And shoes and belt and, worst of all, his fucking glasses. It was rather ridiculous that his human form even needed them but he absolutely did. He’d tried tweaking this form to not need them but had accidentally made his vision even worse. Now, with the situation he and the rest of the crew were in, he just focused on consistency. This body needed to match every time.

Seeing little other option, he ditched everything he was wearing and dropped his form. He’d just have to hide the stuff in a tree again and probably come up with yet another klutzy excuse for why he was rumpled and missing. 

Once he was in dragon form, though, it was much harder to care about such trivialities. Anxiety was another weird side effect of his human form. In his natural dragon state, it was much less of a concern. 

Plus there was the delicious promise of an evening alone with Lup, of feeling the bond between them strengthen while he was in the form to most appreciate it. Just time with Lup was more than enough to spread a wide, toothy grin on his reptilian face. 

He took to the sky, sailing over the landscape, wind in his face and untroubled joy in his heart. 

Sailing over the field, he was surprised to see her waiting. She must have used that spell Taako favored: Phantom Steed. Was she as anxious for this meeting as he was?

Wheeling slowly down towards the ground, he let his shadow pass over her as he flew between her and the sun. He’d thought he’d beat her here and be waiting when she arrived. He’d planned to stretch out in the waning sunlight like a cat, let the warmth soak into his scaly skin.

As nice as that sounded, this was much better, though.

The shadow passing over her made her glance up sharply, and for a moment her eyes were dazzled by the sun. All she could see of him was a silhouette outlined in brilliant sunlight, sparkling around the edges.

He landed close to her, shaking the ground with his weight.

“Hello again, little bright one.”

He was  _ breathtaking. _ As he landed, she tucked her notebook back into her rucksack and stood up, her spine already straightening, and sucking in her tummy a little, emphasizing her chest.

...Cripes, she was sucking in her tummy for a  _ dragon. _ He probably had no idea what elvish body standards were like, he didn’t care if she had washboard abs or a gut.

“Hey, Sildar. How's it goin’?”

“Fantastically,” he answered, neck rising up regally and tail curling then straightening, attempting to show himself to the best advantage. “Now that you are here I cannot imagine it any better.

“And how are you, Lup? I apologize for keeping you waiting, little bright one.”

Whenever he called her ‘little bright one,’ a fire started burning in her stomach, warm and guttering and low. Oh, crap, she really  _ was _ getting horny over a damn dragon. She was out of her mind.

“Nah, it’s okay, I’m sure you’ve got important dragon things to do, and dragon things to see. I don’t mind.”

Gods, he was beautiful though. She’d never even heard of a dragon like him before in her life, and yes, he’d said he was the last. Gods, he must be so lonely. She wanted nothing more than to be his companion, from now until her mortal body gave out. Something about him felt safe, familiar, right.

“You good? Any problems with the natives on this plane?”

“Not so far,” he chuckled. “It’s empty of humanoids, after all.”

He aimed his eyes toward the sky, studying the waning sun. “Would you like to fly with me now? We can see some of the area before the sun disappears completely.”

“Sure! Where are we flying tonight?”

He grinned, the expression showing all his teeth. But there was merriment in his eyes, clear even in the crystalline, cat-like slit of them. 

“Where would you like to go, my young friend?” he asked, positioning himself low to the ground so that she could climb onto his back. “The sky is yours and my direction belongs to your whims. I am only happy to have you with me on this fine evening.”

“Okay, Mr. Smooth!” she said with a laugh, already clambering up onto his back. As she climbed on, she took a moment to pet at his crystalline scales, the soft suede skin of his wings.

And then she was clinging to him and preparing herself for liftoff.

“Starblaster’s to the west, so let’s head east!”

Sildar pushed hard with his wings and his legs, his powerful muscles doing as much of the job propelling them up into the air as possible to make the experience easier on her.

He hung there, orienting himself as his wings beat, maintaining as still a position as he could to let her adjust and prepare. That bond between them was even stronger now, and he could  _ feel _ her as she settled both physically and mentally. Once she was ready, he angled his wings and moved them forward, wind rushing over him and her both.

Flying was always glorious, a time when he was the most settled in himself, in his true nature. But flying with Lup was a feeling beyond compare. This, he realized, was what he’d been lacking his whole long life; it was what he, as a Crystal dragon, most needed to feel complete and secure. Bonds to others were his hoard and the only way to truly feel those bonds with the deep connection he needed was in his true form.

It didn’t matter what difficulties this imposed on his life on the ship. He would have more of this.

She let out a proper Fantasy Billy Idol rebel yell as Sildar took to the skies, and she clung even tighter to his scales. And then… they were soaring.

Lup had never been in love. Not in her entire long elven life, and certainly not over the last twenty-eight cycles...years. Whatever. Oh, she loved people, of  _ course _ she did. She loved her brother, and she loved Barry as her best friend, and she loved the rest of the Starblaster crew. But they were family. Chosen family, but family. Of course she loved her family.

She’d never been in romantic love before, and that was one hell of a distinction.

Was it possible to even have a dragon love you back? Were dragons capable of romantic love? Was she giving in to stereotypes even as she tried not to? How could she mend a broken heart if the being she was in love with was...this? This powerhouse, this gorgeous scaled being, this amazing person with a giving personality and beautiful soul that she’d gotten to know over the last ten months.

She, of all people, knew the power of loving in spite of physical form.

Clinging to him, she let out a slightly smaller whoop of pleasure as he did a quick snap of his wings to take them slightly higher.

Lup’s yells of enjoyment, the way she appreciated flying with him just as clearly as she did everything else in her life was another little piece of his heart falling to her, another bit of his emotional real estate that now had a flag with ‘Property of Lup’ emblazoned on it.

Deep inside of him, the human version of him, the  _ Barry Bluejeans _ version of him, spasmed in jealousy. To him as a dragon, the ancient Sildar of the Crystal flight, it was the feeling of a child huffy with displeasure. He soothed that part of himself, calmed it with patience and understanding that was so easy for him as a dragon currently basking in the comfort and energy of an active bond. 

_ ‘Quiet,’ _ he told that other version of him.  _ ‘We can both enjoy this connection.’ _

And for some reason, he did; perhaps he was smothered in the positive flow of that heady bond energy.

They soared above the trees, the riot of color as purple leaves turned to autumnal colors of deep midnight blue and a rich orange-gold. The sun was falling lower and lower in the sky, shadows drawing out long and thin across the ground.

“Thank you!” he called back to her. “Thank you for coming flying with me!”

“I love it!”

_ I love you. _

She clung even tighter, fingers digging into his scales, and once again was surprised that they didn’t cut or scrape against her delicate skin. One would think that the crystal looking scales would be jagged and rough and serrated. But no, he had soft, sort of leathery scales, that simply sparkled like crystal.

Through the bond, he could feel her joy shift into something different, something deep and golden and sparkling. It radiated through him,  _ out of him, _ and he shone in the twilight, a glow that built outwards from him in a way that felt both physical and magical. 

The sun slipped below the horizon and the world below disappeared into shades of gray as his (and her, he knew) Darkvision took over. Above them stars began to twinkle in a midnight blue sky. There was only the pale hint of the new moon above, almost more an absence of stars than any glow of reflected light from the sun they could no longer see. 

It was nothing like the Hunger, though. This darkness was full of calmness and serenity despite the forceful beat of his wings and the working of his muscles as he propelled them through the sky. 

They might have been the only two beings in existence. And he felt like he could fly with her like this forever.

Holy shit, she realized, he was glowing.

It lit up her vision, and almost seemed to warm her body as they flew and flew and flew, ever into the horizon. She buried her face in the back of his neck and let it all wash over her, how madly in love with this dragon she was. It would be dishonest to deny it anymore. She wanted to tell him right then and there, but this was a joy too fragile to shatter with confessions. Not yet.

“Keep going!” she suddenly shouted, egging him on as only she could.

Pumping his wings harder, he pushed them through the air faster and faster. If her mortal lungs meant he couldn’t take her up into the clouds and beyond, then he’d settle for showing her speed on his back, the giddy rush of it that was so unlike anything they experienced on board the Starblaster. 

He rushed through the darkness, the feeling of night flight utterly unlike flying during the day. Even with Darkvision, the details of the ground below flowed beneath them far too fast to see. His own eyes, better suited through both biology and experience, could pick out enough to avoid obstacles and to choose alternate paths if needed, but even he was losing details to the rush of their speed.

She had to bury her face in his neck to keep the wind from tearing at her eyes, choking her breath. She curled in as close as she could and held on tight.

He smelled nice.

Honestly, Lup didn’t expect that. She expected a sort of dank lizard funk, of skin hidden under unclean scales. But Sildar was apparently the cleanest dragon in all of creation, and smelled faintly of citrus. Huh. He smelled almost exactly like the citrus soap they all shared on the Starblaster.

Then Sildar did a little swoop, and she let out a shriek of excitement, like going down during a roller coaster, and that odd connection was forgotten.

Her reactions made him want to show off even more, want to pull stunts and dives and push his wings to demonstrate all he could do. But she was clinging to his back with no real way to hold on and he was monumentally aware of that fact after her fall the first time they flew together.

“We need to rig you a harness or something!” he called. He had no idea how to do such a thing, how to fit it to himself. If he could, as Barry, walk around himself as Sildar, he could probably work it out but his sense of himself was internal, not something based on measurements and physical space.

She wasn’t sure he could hear her over the buffeting winds, but she tried anyway.

“Hah! Or a saddle! Or you could just tie me to your back.”

...Okay wow, that sounded deliberately provocative and she ducked her face back down again, suddenly blushing furiously.

He didn’t quite catch all of her words but he felt the color of the bond between them shimmer in an unexpected way. Unsure what she’d said, he felt his own strange flush of emotion. There was no physical equivalent in him as an enormous flying lizard but he could sense it in himself, the feeling that in his human form would have stained his face red.

Huh.

The feelings he had for her were of no surprise to him. He’d loved her almost since the moment he first saw her. But feelings in his human form were… different. His human form felt things more acutely. Even something like hunger or thirst was like a knife blade compared to the dull ache of the same things in his natural form. Affection felt vastly different as well. So far, he’d been focused more on the feeling of any bond experienced in his natural form. 

Now, though, he had to recognize that it was this bond in particular. And that his side of this bond was tied into the deepest part of himself, sewn through his heart and lungs and brain and everything he was.

_ Oh. _

Barry Bluejeans loved Lup. But Sildar? Sildar of the Crystal flight  **_loved_ ** her.

  
  


Their flight lasted well into the evening, dipping and swooping and climbing and  _ this _ was freedom. She’d made three decisions in her life that gave her that feeling. The first was knowing she had been born a she and taking the steps to make that the reality. The second was running away from a group of people so she could stay with her brother.

And the third was now, when she decided that, yeah. Yeah, she was very, very much in love with Sildar.

She patted his neck to get his attention, and when she had it, she pointed down.  _ Find a place to land, please _ , because she needed to talk to him.

He wheeled them slowly towards the ground. As Barry Bluejeans, he’d have been stewing in anxious worry at her prompting them to land. 

But Sildar wasn’t worried. He could sense the bond, could sense she wasn’t pulling it back or closing it off. Beyond that? It would work out. He had the patience and calm intrinsic in a being meant to live for millenia.

He found a field near a stream and set them down there, landing as gently as he could before slinking low for her to dismount.

She slid off his back, and then stood up straight in front of him. Her legs were wobbly and a little weak after the flight, but she held herself up high, eyes gleaming in the moonlight.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, nudging her with his snout gently. 

“No. In fact, everything is right.”

She stepped closer to him, and then put a gentle hand on his snout. Her hand barely covered any of his face, she was so tiny compared to him. She had no idea how in the planar system he was going to take this. But she had to tell him.

“You make me feel like I never have before in my life. Like I’m safe. Free. Powerful. Cherished. I...gods, even those words don’t do this feeling justice. And I know...I know my own heart about a lot of things, but I didn’t realize it until we were flying together.

“Sildar...I’m in love with you. And I don’t know what to do about it.”

There were two responses. It was on the tip of his tongue to answer matter of factly, with all the reassurance of that bond that spoke it as clearly as she just had, to say simply, ‘Yes, of course. And I, you, my little bright one.’

But even as a dragon he had a mind that was capable of considering more than just his own implications. She was an elf. He was a dragon. And, beyond that, he was a duplicitous dragon who had lived with her, shared a space with her for decades now without telling her his own basic truths: he was a dragon and he was in love with her.

“I see,” he answered carefully. He settled himself, head resting on his front feet so that his eyes were on level with her. 

And for the fourth time in his very long life, once again he made the difficult decision to hide a core truth of himself. “Little one, you are already more dear to me than any other in such a long, long time.” He sighed, a long exhale of air from enormous lungs that he let out slowly.

“When my flight fell? I expected to never hold another in my heart. My kind do not bond easily but when we do? It is deep and eternal. You are not dragon but you, little bright one, are of my flight. I have flown with you, I have felt our bond, I call you my own.”

He blinked his eyes and stretched his head forward, nuzzling against her gently with his cheek. “But other than caring about your existence and doing what I can to protect you? Things I already told you in our first meeting that I was dedicated towards? There is nothing to ‘do’ about either of our feelings.”

As he spoke, she could feel her heart sort of cracking in two. Well, shit. For the first time in her life, she let herself feel the power and depth of that particular emotion, and she had to go and fall for an actual dragon. Of course he couldn’t love her back the same way. He probably felt like… like when a kid told their teacher that they loved them, a sort of ‘aww that’s cute’ response.

But she did take what comfort she could. She was his ‘flight’ now, they shared a bond that transcended planes. He called her his own. ‘Deep and eternal,’ he’d said.

If that was all she could get with him? She’d take it.

“Had a feeling that was gonna be the answer,” she said with a smile, but her eyes were achingly sad. “But I just wanted to let you know.”

She nuzzled back, the side of her face against his. Closing her eyes, she let out a small sigh. Welp. She’d really gone and screwed the pooch this time, falling in love with him. She really needed to rethink her life choices.

He felt as the bond shifted, darkened,  _ muted _ somehow that was difficult to describe. As a dragon it was as clear to him as altering a recipe must be for her. The flavor of that bond changed in some deep and immeasurable way.

And he oh so very nearly took it all back; he almost undid three of the four of those decisions to hide himself.  _ Lup,  _ he wanted to say, _ I love you. I am Barry. I have loved you for decades. _

Two things held his tongue. The bond engine was a major concern. If he admitted everything could the bond engine survive such a shift? If his secret came out and distrust broke the crew’s bonds, could they flee the Hunger at the end of the cycle? It wasn’t even an option. He couldn’t risk it.

But below that was a horribly selfish reason. Could  _ he _ survive the loss of the bonds? He’d had a taste of a real and important bond in dragon form and now he understood that he’d been living on scraps as a human. He - a Crystal dragon! - who needed those bonds as deeply as he needed physical sustenance, had existed on only the tiny taste of them he could have in his human form. 

If he lost even that? He wasn’t sure he could survive again. The loss of his flight hundreds of years ago, having to hide himself among the mortal races, he’d ‘starved’ for almost all of that time. Only among this crew had he once more had a family, a bond pack.

He was ashamed of himself. He was a coward. The bond engine was just his excuse. There had been no choice in the loss of his dragon flight. But now that he had a choice? He could not face the loss of a second family.

The bond ached from his end as well. Causing her pain or sadness was not just terrible because he cared for her, but because he was poisoning the bond with denial of it.

“I am sorry,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “Grievously sorry.”

“Oh, no, don’t apologize.”

She pulled back just enough so she could look at him, look into the eye facing her, and gave him a smile.

“Like I said, I knew that was gonna be the answer. We’re cool! I just… I just thought I’d tell you. It would be kinda dishonest of me if I didn’t. We’re still friends, right? Hell, we’re more than friends, we’re ‘flight.’ You said it yourself!”

Oh, he felt her mention of being dishonest as a cut right down to the bones of him. Again, his mouth opened, ready to admit everything. But she kept speaking and the reminder they were friends closed his mouth.

Mushing her face back against his, Lup held on to what they had. Romantic love was out of the question, clearly. And she’d known anything physical was off the table too, for so many obvious reasons. So… she just loved him. She didn’t know what it meant to him, how that bond was sustaining him. So she just let herself feel it, a bittersweet curl of sorrow in amongst the boundless joy she felt when she was around him.

“I hope I haven’t made you unhappy,” she managed to murmur after a second. “I’d hate that. I want you to be happy, that’s all.”

“Lup...” he began, trying to find some way of telling at least her.

Once again, he stopped. It wasn’t fair to expect her to keep his secret and he simply couldn’t risk the bonds. Losing them again? Being trapped in this cycle with a broken bond pack? Absolutely impossible.

“We should probably get you back.”

“...Oh. Okay.”

Well fuck a damn duck. She’d just lost her very best friend aside from Barry, hadn’t she? Should have kept her ding-dang mouth shut. Oh, you’re in love? Cool, great, love that for you,  _ never talk about being in love ever again Lup. _

She swallowed against a suddenly dry throat, and carefully climbed onto his back, not meeting his eyes anymore. She’d said they were still friends, and he just… shut her down and told her they should go back.

Lup buried her face in the back of his neck and breathed him in, probably for the last time.

“Oh, little bright one,  _ no. _ ”

He curled his head around, his long neck curving into a U so he could glimpse her. “Dear one, I can  _ feel _ you shutting down our bond. Please…”

With her face pressed against him, he couldn’t see her eyes. The heartbreak was shattering down the bond, turning it brittle, fragmenting what had just burned so strongly.

“You will always be my…” He stopped himself. He’d been about to say ‘ _ lifebonded _ ’ but that was hardly true, was it? They were in some terrible, two person love triangle. She loved the dragon, he loved the elf, but… too much truth was left out of the equation to claim it, especially with the damage the bond was taking now, just as it had begun to flourish.

“You are my flight, my bond pack, and my  _ friend. _ I would no sooner see you hurt than lose all the worlds we hope to save. Please, dear one…”

When she looked up, her eyes were wet with tears, and she let out a long, shaky breath.

“Really? I just… I thought you wouldn’t want to be around me any more. I know it’s e-embarrassing, sorry. I’m…”

And then what he said struck her, and her grief morphed into something curious. She was a scientist, after all, and not only that but a scientist who studied how bond magic worked. She'd helped build the Starblaster, after all, and knew better than anyone how important bond magic was.

“You can...you can actually _ feel _ our bond?”

“Of course,” he answered matter of factly. “I  _ am _ a Crystal, after all.”

Then it came back to him. He’d forgotten. “Oh. You didn’t know that. You don’t know anything about Crystals, do you?”

“No.”

It was a simple confession, which on the tail end of her other confession just went to underscore just how foolish she actually was. She’d been drawn to his kindness, and his humor, and his sense of adventure, and oh, oh how wonderful it felt to fly with him. But in reality, she hardly knew anything about him.

“You said you lost your flight, that you were the only one but… Sildar, you’re the first dragon I’ve ever been within a hundred miles of, let alone touched or talked to.”

“Come back down and talk to me?” he asked. “If you… if you want to know and… have time… I will explain Crystals to you. Well, there are no longer Crystals. I suppose I will explain  _ me. _ ”

She nodded, too eager, perhaps, and slid back down to the ground. The grass was a little wet with dew, but she sat cross legged there anyway, looking up at him with a hopeful but worried expression.

“Tell me? I want to know everything.” Her voice was soft and wondering and a little bit shy.

“You… probably know about the basic nature of dragons. That we prize something above all else. I believe most stories imagine us sitting atop a mountain of gold and protecting it against all threats. That’s not… Only some flights care for material goods and only a few for gold in particular.

“Crystals, though? We prize  _ bonds _ above all else.” He paused and amended, “Prized.”

He laid his head on the grass beside her. “There can be material aspects to that, sentimental items indicative of that bond.” He blinked slowly, sadness thick behind his eyes. “When a Crystal forms a bond… When  _ I _ form a bond? It is deep and important. I feel that bond, like this connection to you, as strongly as the ground beneath us. But it is also sustenance to me, in a way. Lup, I have been… alone for a long time. I had nearly forgotten the feeling of sharing a bond. So perhaps it is selfish of me, but I would not lose that for anything. But that is both because of the bond and because of  _ you. _

“Do you see?”

Lup was quiet as she considered it all. Everybody knew that dragons had hoards. That was one of the few things she  _ had _ known. But to hear that Crystal dragons hoarded  _ bonds? _

Holy cow, the rest of the crew was going to shit an entire mansion’s worth of bricks when they found that out. There it was, the proof that Sildar was their ally, that he prized their bond and treasured it. If only he could form those bonds with the rest of the crew, they might be able to help him, keep him on the Starblaster when the Hunger arrived, keep him safe through the resets.

“I do,” she breathed, already scooting closer to him, to put her hand on his snout again. “Oh, good gods above and below, I  _ do! _ Sildar, this is incredible!”

“Then you can see I would never want to hurt you. Not only because hurting you would hurt me as well, but because I can feel your pain through that bond.

“And, Lup, how could anyone want to hurt  _ you? _ ” He let out a soft huff of warm breath against her hand.

“Crystals adopt other races, you know. Or we did. Our flights have always been small, a fraction of the size of other dragon flights. But we would become protectors of a town, defend them against invaders, help them in times of struggle,  _ look out for them as our own _ because they  _ were. _ ”

And that’s when it hit her.

He was just as madly in love with her as she was with him, but understood the limitations more clearly than she did. It wasn’t romance he was after, obviously not. Romance was a watery sop compared to the bond he felt with her.

Her eyes went wide, and then she was throwing herself at him, hugging him around his long, sinuous neck and clinging for dear life. This wasn’t a romantic love, but it was an undying, forever kind of love, and she was  _ so fucking lucky. _

“I get it,” she said, still holding on. “I  _ get _ it. Oh, Sildar!”

He wasn’t entirely sure what that had clarified for her but he could feel the fractures of their bond healing, strengthening, growing wild and fast, could feel the bond sewing itself into every fibre of his being.

“I’m so glad, Lup,” he said, his deep voice thickened with emotion. Her joy was flooding through him. His scales shone with it once again, having dulled unconsciously during their discussion. “So we are okay?” he asked anyway. “I  _ feel _ that we are but… it would be unfair for me to rely on a thing you cannot also feel yourself.”

“No, we’re so good!”

She pulled back with a slightly manic grin on her face, and then leaned in and pressed a kiss against his scales, just below his jaw. And then she just flopped over his neck again, petting his scales and his horns and whatever she could reach from her place against him.

“I mean it, we’re so good. You… you were right, it changes nothing, we already knew we loved each other. Wow. I’m sorry I was so mopey there for a minute, I didn’t understand yet. Gods, a broken heart sucks, zero out of ten, would not recommend.”

_ Oh. _

That is what he’d confirmed to her. He’d spoken too honestly, it seemed, and that had come through.

Inside of him a very unhappy ‘human’ twisted miserably. Barry’s life was about to get even more difficult.

“Should we get you back now, little bright one? I do not want to worry  _ your _ bond pack.”

She glanced at her watch, and flinched.

“Oh, shit! Yeah, we should. Holy fucksticks, I’m gonna be in so much trouble with the Cap’n’port if I’m AWOL come sunrise. Yeah, get me back to the ship, please? Or, no, get me about forty-five minutes away from the ship, so I can ride my Phantom Steed back. Don’t want to get everybody all suspicious.”

Once again, she climbed up onto his back, and clung tightly.

“And hey, Sildar? Someday they’re going to be your flight too. I just know it.”

He didn’t respond to her impossible prediction, just waited to feel her settle into place and lifted off the ground with a forceful push of his wings. They’d meanered a bit as they traveled, their eastward direction had turned southward for a while as he’d followed a river for a time. 

But now he returned in a more direct route, passing an area they’d never traveled before.

“There,” he said, catching her attention when they were about halfway back to the point he was aiming for. “Is that…?”

Below them was a steady glow.

The Light.

“OH FUCK!”

Lup didn’t mean to shout, but she was immediately tapping Sildar to dive, dive,  _ dive! _ If she returned to the Starblaster with the Light, nobody would question anything, and they could spend the next month studying it again, and asking those important and pertinent questions.

Trusting her to hold on, he slicked his wings back and pointed himself snout down, shooting through the air like a rocket pinpointed on that glowing spot. Just before he reached the treeline, he shot his wings back out, almost stopping their descent compared to the speed they’d been moving. 

Cutting through the trees expertly, he made his way under the canopy of leaves without damaging either of them. The Light was ahead of them somewhere. Without pausing, he pushed forward, moving quickly along the ground with Lup still on his back.

Nocturnal creatures scattered at the enormous being that had suddenly appeared in their domain. He crashed through the underbrush near a small brooke and splashed across it.

And then there was the thing he’d spotted, ahead of them, glowing steadily.

She jumped down immediately, and ran for the thing. And then the Light of Creation was in her hands, and she let out a gasping sort of sob. They’d tried so hard to find it every cycle. 

But to know her purple world would be spared? This world where she’d found her love? It made her break down over the globe of Light, even as she clutched it close to her chest and held on tightly.

He was certainly glad to have located the Light as well, but for the moment all he could do was bask in  _ her _ relief. It washed down the bond, a green and blue tinged pulse like a comforting balm.

Moving forward he nudged her with the side of his head, encouraging her to lean on him. She’d never explained about the Light so he didn’t comment on it, just supported her while she recovered.

Over the last twenty-eight years, Lup had held the Light in her bare hands several times. Sometimes Taako found it, sometimes Barry. Sometimes Magnus or Merle did. But once it was back on the ship, it went into a safely sealed container, and all of their experiments were done at a remove, to keep themselves safe.

But one of the things she never discussed with anybody was how it felt to hold it. It felt too personal, too deep into her soul to tell anybody, not even her brother.

Holding the Light in her hands felt like the purest, most blissful pleasure she'd ever experienced. An orgasm for the soul, maybe. And that pleasure rippled down their bond without her knowing it, blasting Sildar with that intense sensation as she cradled the Light to her chest.

The wash of relief he’d felt from her when she’d first seen and rushed to the Light changed as she held it. And for the second time that evening, if dragons had been able to blush, he would have. There was a rush of intense feeling cascading down the bond and he had the distinct feeling he was listening in on something private.

“Lup?” he questioned. “Are you okay?”

She looked up at him with a smile that was almost glowing, she was so happy.

“I am so super good,” she said, her voice wavering a little as she held it. Then, something in her made her want to share this feeling, so she extended her hands to him, holding it out for him to take.

“Isn’t it beautiful? Here, hold it for a second, you’ll see what I mean.”

Extending a claw tipped foot, he let her balance it in his grasp, curling his talons around it delicately. He’d never touched the Light in dragon form before. The few times he’d been able to spot it during a covert flight, he’d just come back and found a way to get them there while in his human form.

The sensation was overwhelming. For a moment he wanted to cradle it to his chest, protect it, hoard it. But there was a strange tinge to the feeling, like a bitter aftertaste of poison hidden in a delicious sweetness. He almost recoiled from the thing, nearly dropping it.

He spoke delicately, all too aware of the emotion still pulsing down the bond. “Lup, that thing… it is dangerous. It feels… I’ve heard of drugs mortals use that cause delight but are laced with a dependency that eats at them. This has that feel.”

“I know.”

Of course she knew. That was why the Light always went in a sealed container once it got on board the ship, after all. She gently took it back from Sildar, letting that bliss wash over her again, letting that addictive feeling in for just a minute, just a minute.

“That’s why this is all happening. That’s why the Hunger is chasing us. It wants that feeling, only it wants to twist it and subvert it. It wants to use the Light of Creation to help it destroy everything. It’s as addicted as we are. But… oh, isn’t it so beautiful?”

His jaw flexed. “Well. Let’s get you both safely back then.”

Eyeing the shining orb, he added. “Maybe we can risk me bringing you closer to the ship. So you can get it safely stowed more quickly.”

She thought about the risk, about how Davenport and Merle and Lucretia were still very firmly in the  _ Just Say No To Dragons _ camp, but… yeah, maybe if they saw him helping her bring in the Light, they’d change their tune.

“Hell yeah, my dude! Let’s get this back to the ship ASAP.”

She finally tucked it into her rucksack and then climbed back up on Sildar, clinging to him tightly.

“Tally fuckin’ ho!”

His thoughts were spinning as he flew them back towards the ship. As always, he was reluctant to give up being with her in his dragon form but he had a new respect for the power the Light held and wanted her safely separated from it as quickly as possible. So he pushed his powerful body as hard as he could, milking every ounce of speed he could from his muscles and wings, shooting them across the sky.

As soon as he was close, though, he slowed. It wasn’t the place where he’d met her - they were much closer to the ship now - but he landed just out of sight of the Starblaster.

“Your silver ship is just over that ridge,” he told her as she climbed down. “I will watch to make sure you get home safely.”

She hated to be parted from him after this incredible night. Their meetings weren’t all that frequent, after all, once a month on the new moon.

“Can I see you again tomorrow?” she asked, knowing again that his answer would be in the negative. She shouldn’t demand so much of his time, anyway. But she wanted, selfishly, to be with him always. Sliding down off his back, she circled him so they were face to face, and she put her hand on his snout again.

“I just… I don’t want to go weeks without seeing you, that’s all.”

“I…” There it was again, that impulse to agree with her, to give her anything she - and he himself, honestly - wanted.

He raised his head, looking at the ridge that separated them from the rest of the crew. Towards the ship, where she assumed Barry Bluejeans was waiting. His heart squeezed painfully. The awareness of bonds was certainly muted when he was in his human form but he knew how much it was going to hurt, being around her and knowing how she felt for another.

“You’ve said yourself that much of the rest of your pack dislike the very idea of me.” He lowered his head and nudged her gently with his snout. “And it seems you may have another demand on your time now.”

Sighing, he couldn’t help offering, “But perhaps on the next new moon?”

Yeah, there it was again. But now, knowing that he could basically sense her emotions at any given time? She clamped down tight on that grief and nodded.

“Next new moon,” she promised. A month. She could wait a month. It was awfully close to regen, but she could wait a month. “Same place, same time. I’ll tell you everything that happened with the Light.”

She stood on tiptoe, and pressed a kiss to the tip of his snout.

“Take care of yourself, love. Be careful out there.”

Watching her walk away, feeling that intentional muting of their bond, his chest ached painfully. 

“Little bright one?” he called gently, his voice as soft as it was possible for a thirty foot lizard’s voice to be. “I’m sorry, I cannot shut off my awareness of our bond. I realize that can be like eavesdropping. But please do not try to silence it. That is as distressing as your sadness. 

“I would see you every day if I could.” He hesitated, unsure how to even try to explain. “But there are so many complications and I am only trying to do what is best.”

She turned back to him, and closing her eyes, she let the grief settle down first, the grief of their separation for a month, possibly longer. The grief that their love had to be hidden. (That tiny selfish part of her that wanted to give him everything she was, from her spirit to her mind and, yes, her body.) 

But then she just let herself love him. How beautiful he was, how powerful, how kind and sweet and generous. She let him see how she saw him, and she  _ smiled. _

“Okay,” she said, immediately accepting that ‘eavesdropping.’ “I understand. Wherever we end up, though? I want you to know I’m thinking of you. And loving you.”

It wasn’t a good decision but it wasn’t a decision at all. Between her emotions over the bond and her words? Light was pouring out of his scales as brightly as the Light hidden in her rucksack. 

So with no conscious choice he licked her, as clear a sign of affection as he could offer. Afterwards, he just whuffed out a hot breath of air against her chest then nudged her towards the ship. “Be well, Lup of the Crystal flight. I will see you again under the new moon.”

She squealed with joy and wriggled away from him, still laughing.

“Gross! Super gross! Why do you think licking me is at all okay, Sildar?!” But she was joking, naturally, and joy was still singing and sparking along their bond. She ran up, gave him one last quick kiss on his snout, and then was running for the Starblaster at a jog. She was going to get chewed out for being gone so long, but having the Light with her, oh man...

He chuckled as he watched her run towards the ridge, not at all feeling rebuked for his actions. As she crossed the ridge he rose up, wings propelling him into the sky, and from his higher vantage point, watched her continue on towards the ship.

Only then did the great and brilliant lizard who had nearly a millennia of life under his theoretical belt remember that he was meant to be  _ on _ that ship right now in his human form.

“Fuck.”

Lup ran up the gangplank of the Starblaster. It was the middle of the night, ‘oh dark hundred’ as Magnus liked to call it, but she was already calling out to her family.

“Guys! GUYS!  **I GOT THE LIGHT!** ”

Cap’n’port was out first, skidding to a stop on the bridge in his striped pajamas, fiery red hair scattered in all directions.

“How in the name of Pan did you...?”

Taako burst in next, in his silk bathrobe, followed by Magnus in his boxers. Soon, everybody was on the bridge, everybody was yelling at her, some in disbelief, some in shock, some congratulating her. Everybody, that is, except...

“...Where’s Barry?”

“Well,  _ fuck _ , I  _ told _ him…” Taako muttered. Louder, he asked Lup, though the answer was as obvious as the Light of Creation at midnight, “So he never found you?”

Without waiting for an answer he was shaking his head. “Gods _ dammit _ , I fucking  _ told _ him he’d never catch up to you. Whatever sample or some shit you were after? It seems Science Officer Numbnuts told you the wrong thing. After you left he took off to find you and tell you what the right bullshit was. Knowing Barold, he’s gone and walked off a cliff or something.”

Her heart plummeted.

“Well, fuck!”

She thrust the Light at Davenport, and swung her rucksack down onto the ground. And then she was running again, this time back out of the ship. Maybe Sildar was still nearby, maybe they could go searching for Barry. Oh, gods, if anything had happened to Barry because she asked him to cover for her, she’d feel so stupid. Sure, he’d be back at the start of the next cycle but...

“Barry?! Barry Bluejeans! Where are you? SILDAR?”

He’d just collected the knot of clothes he’d secured when he heard her yelling his name.

_ Names. _

Shit.

For the space of one slow dragon’s heartbeat, he considered using the clothes to imply his human form’s demise. He’d had to do a similar thing before, he couldn’t be the only one who’d never died during a cycle even though it was  _ incredibly _ hard to kill a dragon. If his human form was injured seriously enough, he’d just be forced into his dragon form. If his dragon self was too badly injured, he’d likely still be able to deal with the immediate threat and then just hibernate until he could recover. But clearly they didn’t know any of that. The year she’d seen his dragon form fighting the Hunger had been one of those years that he’d taken advantage of circumstances to let it seem Barry Bluejeans had met his unfortunate end. And after all, it had allowed him to find out how effective his light breath was on the Hunger.

But if he did that, allowed it to seem Barry had once again suffered a misfortune, would she blame herself? He couldn’t bear it. 

Shifting, he began pulling on his clothes. He didn’t get far before he was nearly knocked to his knees. The change in his perception of bonds gutted him and then combined with the anxiety his human form was subject to  _ and _ the overwhelming jealousy that settled thick and miserable in the pit of his stomach? He was barely able to pull on his boxers and jeans before he was vomiting what little food he had in his system. Shakily leaning against the tree where his bundle of clothes had been stowed, he tried to calm himself and breathe slowly. There was no time, though. He had to finish dressing before they found him.

Clothes on, glasses in place, belt buckled, he sat on the ground to pull on his socks and shoes. When Merle spotted him, he’d only just tied the laces on his thick boots seconds before and laid over on the wet ground, too busy fighting off another wave of nausea to respond to the sound of his name. Instead he only raised a hand weakly for a wave of acknowledgement, before turning to retch miserably again.

“Found him!” Merle called.

“Barry!”

Lup was there a moment later, skidding to a halt next to him, and helping him roll on to his side. “Oh, gods, you’re ill!” She pushed his hair back from his forehead to feel if he had a fever. Nothing.

“What are you doing out here, Barold? I thought…”

Then she remembered what Taako said, that Barry had gone looking for her for some reagent for spellwork, or something. She quickly put two and two together. In asking him to cover for her, he’d actually gone and left the ship, and something either poisoned him or something venomous bit him.

“Merle, I think he’s been poisoned or something!”

Oh, gods, it was all her fault. She was off being selfish and he took a big hit for her.

“Here, let’s get you back to the ship…”

Being near her almost made him feel worse. It was like he was divided in two; one half of him mourning the loss of that constant flow through the bond (now barely a whisper while he was in his human form) and the other half of him quite literally sick with a cavalcade of human emotions. 

Ugh. He was so. fucking.  _ stupid. _

What the hell had he been thinking? He’d warned her about the Light but  _ he’d _ been drunk on that fucking  _ bond. _ Now here he was with the fucking hangover to prove it.

“I’m okay,” he protested, even as his stomach clenched again. “I just…” he pushed off the concerned hands trying to help him to turn and vomit again, though there was nothing but dry heaves left. He couldn’t do anything but crouch there, braced on his hands, and wait for his body to recover enough to let him stand.

He felt a shimmer of magic as Merle hit him with a healing spell. But the cleric’s magic couldn’t do anything for the mixture of things ailing him at the moment.

“Well, shit,” Merle complained. “That should have perked him up  _ some. _ ”

“Oh, Barry.”

She was rubbing his back as he kept heaving, and in spite of Merle’s healing magic, nothing was working. So she just kept comforting him as best she could.

“Uh, Barold, what the hell, my dude?” asked Taako. “You’re not out here eating random berries or something, are you? Cuz you skipped dinner and I wouldn’t have poisoned you.”

“Shut up, Ko!” snapped his sister. “It’s gonna be okay, Barry. It’s okay.”

“Lup,” began Davenport, his bushy eyebrows knotting together over his nose. “Why did you call out for Sildar? Were you with _ that dragon _ again?”

“Yes!” she said, furious that everybody was just apparently over the fact that Barry was suffering. “He helped me find the Light, okay? Barry was covering for me. Fine. Whatever. Can we please just get him back home before we start the lecture?”

That only made it worse for Barry. The thing he’d been trying to avoid had happened anyway, they knew she was with the dragon. He began heaving again then sagged back. “Stop, just… stop.” 

“C’mon, Cap’n’port,” Magnus interrupted, gently laying his hand on Davenport’s shoulder. “We can talk about this later.”

Davenport set his jaw but nodded. 

Barry let Lup and Magnus help him up, leaning on the fighter as he weakly stumbled forward. After a few steps he felt stable enough to continue on his own. “It’s okay, I… I’m okay,” he protested as Magnus kept trying to help.

Once they were back on the ship, he continued through to the kitchen, Lup and Magnus still hovering closely as he got a huge glass of water. He wanted little more in the multiverse than to take it back to his room and sip it, to lay in the dark while he tried to sort out the tangled mess in his heart and in his head. But there wasn’t time for that now. Davenport was practically vibrating with suppressed irritation.

Lup helped Barry into a chair in the kitchen and sat with him, still petting his hair back and looking very worried. He was pale and clammy and looked so miserable.

“I am so sorry, Barry,” she finally murmured to him. “Didn’t think you’d go this far to cover my ass. Thank you.”

Davenport cleared his throat, and Lup sighed.

“Lup, you are  _ continuing _ to put us all at risk by meeting up with that dragon. I didn’t want to have to do this, but consider this an official order from your Captain: You are no longer allowed to meet with him under any circumstances.”

Lup went very still, and then stood up, jaw set.

“Then you better put me in the brig right now, because I’m not obeying that order.”

Taako choked on air.

“Lu, what are you doing?” he demanded, only to be forcefully shut up by her casting Silence on him. On her own brother. Oh, sure, he dismissed it just as quickly, but she’d  _ never _ done that to him before. Davenport, meanwhile, was staring at her like she’d lost her goddamn mind. And maybe she had.

“Nope! Not having it! He is a Crystal dragon, and that means they don’t hoard things like gold and jewelry. They hoard bonds, Cap’n. Bonds! The thing that powers our ship, remember? And I have formed a bond with him. So if you try to scold me like I’m some dumb teenager sneaking out for a date then you’re literally damaging our bond which, oh  _ whoops _ ! Could break our ship!”

A long, long silence followed. 

Finally, Magnus cleared his throat. “Uh, Lup? Are you in love with a dragon?”

Four people simultaneously erupted into exclamations. Davenport was nearly apoplectic, his normally composed self sputtering little more than fragments of words. Lucretia’s voice, by counterpoint, was soft and shocked. Merle had begun his usual round of reasons dragons weren’t to be trusted, which from the words that could be picked out among the racket, now included seduction among their evil tactics. 

And Taako was howling with laughter. “You!” he began, only to collapse into another fit of nearly hysterical laughter. “You  _ didn’t! _ Not even  _ you. _ ” 

Barry was silent, his grip around the glass he was holding so tight that his knuckles were white. If it had been made of less sturdy stuff he’d have crushed it right in his fingers.

Magnus just waited for her answer. “Lup?”

She blushed clear to the roots of her hair, but took a deep breath.

And then just nodded once.

Davenport threw up his hands and started cursing in four languages simultaneously, which was quite interesting to hear. Taako just laughed harder.

But Magnus was the one who surprised her.

“Hey! Don’t laugh at her!” He walked over to her and then just… pulled her into one of those big bear hugs he was so good at doling out. She couldn’t even hug back for a second, she was so surprised. “She has great taste in people, y’know. Unlike some of you dweebuses. So what if he’s a dragon? She loves him, and that’s good enough for me.”

Lup’s arms went around him. “Maggie, you’re a giant sap.”

Lucretia’s mouth pulled tight and her eyes narrowed. “What exactly do you think is going to happen here?” Her voice was gentle but her tone was serious. “There’s at least a thousand years of history with never so much as a hint of anything like…”

“Because his flight was  _ destroyed! _ ” Lup groaned. “There’s no history of his flight because it was completely wiped out. He’s the last one! We have no records of his flight because there was nobody to record it!”

“Lup,” Davenport began. He was trying his hardest to be reasonable, to make  _ her _ see reason. “We all know you have a big heart. It’s one of your finest qualities. But this?” His voice spiked with emotion and he paused to take a calming breath. “This is just beyond.”

Taako, who’d choked on his laughter when Magnus told him off, was scowling.

“Look, oh sister mine who I love very much, Davenport’s right. You can’t bump uglies with a dragon, I refuse to be an uncle to a fucking clutch of eggs!”

The look that Lup shot her brother was venomous.

“Gross, Taako. Don’t be like that.”

She sat back down next to Barry, subconsciously leaning in to him for support. He'd always been on her side in these little confrontations, and without even thinking about it, she knew that his illness was the only thing keeping him from speaking up.

For his part, Barry felt like he was literally dying under a combination of bond overdose and bond withdrawal all topped with a sick jealousy still spreading like poison through his system. As a Crystal dragon, he should have known that kind of literal bond sickness might be possible. Now he was too sick to even know how to deal with it. 

Literally and figuratively leaning on Barry, Lup tried another tactic. “If you would all just listen to me, actually hear what I am telling you, and go talk with him instead of just being a bunch of reactionary old racists! Yeah, I said it! Do you hate all Orcs? Or all Aarakocra? Nope! Sure, there are a bunch of jerks in every race but we don’t judge them all by those jerks! Dragons are the same. And Sildar is wonderful! Kind, and caring, and smart. And brave! You saw him fighting the Hunger that one time! He literally didn’t have to do that, but he gave us all enough time to escape!”

She took another breath, and pinned Lucretia, Davenport and Merle with a look.

“You are all acting like we are the be-all and end-all of arbiters of truth and justice of every plane we go to. I thought we learned our lesson after the robot world, but I guess not. We’re  _ better  _ than this. Give him a chance and  _ talk to him _ !”

With no idea what else to do, Barry did what he’d done so many times before and stuffed his own feelings away. Summoning up every ounce of determination he had, he pushed his jealousy down. Then he comforted her the most important way he could: by standing up for her.

Clearing his throat, he looked around at each of them. “Don’t we need every ally we can get in this fight? Isn’t Lup worth believing?”

His eyes landed on Lup beside him and the smile that she gave him was absolutely breathtaking.

“Science Officer,” Davenport responded, using Barry’s title and icing it in sarcasm, “are you telling me that you have no problem with the idea that she’s defending this …  _ thing _ ... because she fancies herself in  _ love _ with it?”

Barry winced. 

Lup jumped to her feet again. “If you ever call Sildar a  _ thing _ again, I will personally make sure we don’t see you until next regen,  _ Captain. _ ”

Silence. And then from Magnus, “Whoa,” in a very soft voice.

“Okay!” said Taako, immediately grabbing his sister by the shoulders and steering her out of the room. “That’s enough of that for the night, I’ll talk her down, but yeah, ‘thing’ was deffo not the cool thing to say about a person, Cap.”

“Yeah, Dav, I mean, wow. I’m not a fan of dragons in general but I don’t call ‘em ‘things,’” said Merle, looking disappointed.

“That was much too far, sir,” Lucretia added.

Davenport grit his teeth in frustration for a moment then called to the backs of the retreating twins. “I apologize for my choice of words.”

Magnus nodded. “That was a good start, Captain. I’m proud of you. But… you know you’re going to have to give him a chance now, right?”

Davenport sighed. “Fine.  _ Fine _ . But I’m not just falling for this th- … For a bunch of lies. We all go, we all face … him.” 

Barry swallowed. “Someone should stay with the ship,” he reminded them. “We shouldn’t all go.”

Frowning, Davenport nodded his head. “I want us all there but you’re right. Lup should stay, she’s not going to-”

“I’ll stay,” Barry interrupted.

“Bluejeans, I’d rather have my lead science officer there.”

“Think about this, Captain. You know my opinion. You know Lup’s. But what’s gonna happen if you try to cut her out of this meeting?”

Davenport huffed another sigh. “Arg! Fine! You’ll stay with the ship, keep it at a safe distance, and pick us up after a prearranged signal.” He paused then added, “A signal Lup won’t know.”

“She’d never jeopardize us,” Barry reminded the captain. “You know that.”

“I do. But considering the stakes? I’m not taking any more chances than I have to.”

\---

Taako hustled Lup into her room and slammed the door behind them.

“Okay, you just literally  _ threatened to murder Davenport! _ What the actual fuck, Lu?”

In answer, Lup just sank down onto her bed and burst into big, messy tears. Taako tutted and then sat down with her, arm around her shoulders, and let her cry it out.

“W-Why won’t they listen?” she finally wailed after a few minutes. “Do they really not trust me? Do they really think I’m that stupid?”

“Nah, Lu, nah. They trust you. I trust you. It’s just a lot, you know? Sneaking off to meet a dragon? That you’ve  _ fallen in love with? _ Girl, that is a whole messy clownshoes moment, even for you.”

“You’ve never even spoken with him!" she flashed, hot and defensive. "If you had, you’d understand!”

“Okay, okay! I’ll talk with the dang dragon. And I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. Sheesh, you really are gone on his scaly ass, aren’t you?”

“...He’s wonderful. He’s just...he’s good Taako! He’s a good person. And just because of the way he’s shaped nobody believes in him. But I do.”

“Yeah. Okay. I’m sure he’s great. But… what would you say if I came home, swanning about with little pink love hearts above my head because of a velociraptor?”

“Is the velociraptor sentient? Because if he was a sentient, flamboyantly gay velociraptor,  _ you absolutely would!” _

_ “Lup,” _ Taako intoned, his voice dripping with disdain. “Come on.” He shook his head and looked insulted. “You know flamboyant isn’t my type. Tall, dark, and handsome, yes, but can’t have my guy trying to upstage me.”

“Oh, uh huh, like ‘tall dark and handsome’ isn’t flamboyant. You know you’re only gonna be happy with somebody who’s as extra as you are, just in a different color palette.” 

She flopped back onto the bed and threw one arm over her eyes.

“Arm candy and flamboyant are two different things,” he clarified, flopping down beside her. 

The pair laid in silence for a moment before Lup asked, “ I should apologize to Davenport, huh?”

“He apologized about the… what he said,” answered Taako, his tone subdued. “So, yes, you should. But you should both cool off first.” 

Grabbing one of her pillows he tossed it on top of her. “Maybe  _ that’s _ your problem. You need a cold shower.”

She blew out a breath, and without missing a beat she grabbed that pillow and whapped his legs with it, before dropping it.

“I need a lot of things,” she grumbled under her breath. “But… yeah. Maybe you’re right. A shower and a long nap would be a pretty good wetware reboot.”

Snickering, all he managed to respond was “wetware” before turning into howling laughter. “Wetware!” he repeated whenever he had enough breath. His howls curled him on his side reaching for her. “C’mon, ya gotta admit…” he had to wipe his eyes but couldn’t finish his sentence, returning to giggles after another “ _ wetware _ ” that was this time followed with, “I bet it’s  _ wetware. _ ”

“Fuck off!” she said, laughing along with him. “I make up the best words, I’m a certified genius, I have a piece of paper and everything.”

She rolled off the bed, stood, and grabbed her towel.

“Get out of my room, dingus, I’m gonna go shower.”

“I’m going. I’m going,” he said, hauling himself out of her bed with exaggerated effort. “Get some beauty sleep after, okay? Gotta keep looking fresh and fine for your  _ boyfriend! _ ”

“Just for that, I will!”

And she slammed the door in his face, because that’s how siblings show love and affection. Once she was sure he was long gone, she opened the door again and slipped down the hall to the shower. (Gods, if the IPRE had known what their ‘exploratory’ trip would turn into, maybe they woulda spent a little more gold on private bathrooms.)

After mostly listening to Davenport, Magnus, and Lucretia debate the topic and occasionally adding his own comment, the others returned to bed. Barry refilled his water glass and headed down the starboard hall to his room, turning into it just as Lup stepped out of her door.

“Uh, hey,” he said, fingers tightening reflexively on the glass. “Sorry, I uh… Sorry. I didn’t do a very good job covering for you.”

She blinked, a little startled, and then melted into a huge, huge grin.

“Nah, it’s fine, I’m good. Oh, Barry! I’m glad you’re feeling better.”

Lup pulled him into a tight hug, her nose buried in his shirt. And got a whiff of that same citrus soap she’d smelled on Sildar, and had a little weird moment of vertigo.

With one arm he briefly returned the hug then stepped back, clutching his water glass to his chest.

“Next time, though, stay here! You wandering around in the dark getting hurt because I’m off with Sildar is just unacceptable. I need my favorite lab friend in one piece, especially now that we have the Light.”

He bristled a little at the word ‘friend,’ the knot of jealousy slipping free of the leash he’d gotten on it. It seemed to unfurl, slipping green, envious fingers out through his whole body. 

“Yeah,” he said, voice flat. “Sure, pal. Uh… congrats, I guess.”

Now she was no dummy, and she knew Barry very well. So that sarcastic little ‘pal’ made her frown a little at him, and narrow her eyes.

“Oh, c’mon, not you too! It’s not like what everybody is thinking, honest to Pan. Everybody’s making, like, dragon fucking goofs, and that’s not what this is. It’s… ugh, it’s hard to explain. It’s not even romantic, really. But… it’s more than just chosen family. It’s really hard to put into words, but he loves me. And that’s… wow. I mean, somebody as wonderful as him loves me. That’s so…”

She huffed a little breath, and stopped babbling. “I just thought you’d be happy for me.”

He sighed and looked up, studying the spot where the wall met the ceiling. “Lup, I just…” He shook his head. “I’m glad you’re happy,” he said genuinely, eyes sliding back to hers briefly. “But didn’t you ever think that there was someone who might-”

Clamping his mouth shut, he shrugged. “Nevermind.” Moving to step around her he added a soft, “Good night.”

Oh.

Oh,  _ shit. _

She’d been working closely with Barry for twenty-eight years, and as she’d just told Taako, she wasn’t stupid. She was one of the most capable wizards in planar history, and knew the power of bonds so well. Especially now that she knew that, somewhere out there, Sildar could sense her emotions through the bond. So it wasn’t anger or jealousy she felt, but a stab of sheer  _ pity _ . And that wasn’t a good look at all.

“Barry,” she said softly. “I’m sorry.”

He froze. Even if he hadn’t felt the emotion through the bond, or the shadow he could feel in his human form, he could recognize it just fine in her voice.

“Don’t.” 

The single syllable was cold.  _ Pained. _

“Just... don’t.”

Not turning to look at her, he continued down the hallway, into his bunkroom, and closed the door behind him with a soft click. 

She cringed as the door closed, and swallowed back a sudden mouthful of sour saliva.

Now that she knew that Sildar could feel their bond, she was suddenly a lot more conscious of them herself. And she just knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she’d just witnessed Barry shutting down their own bond. What her broken heart had done to Sildar, Barry had just done to her. She could almost picture it, see the threads between them fraying and breaking and shattering.

“Fuck,” she whispered to herself. Yeah, forget the shower. She was going right to sleep after she had a couple shots of vodka.

Barry Bluejeans closed the door to the room where he’d lived for nearly three decades. It was a small space, roughly 8’x9’. For their original mission it had been an insane amount of private space to squander on the crew: five bunkrooms of that size plus two larger ones for the captain and the mission chronicler. 

But they were well beyond the scope of that three month mission now and what had originally seemed like a precious amount of space to claim for the limited free time they’d each have now just seemed like a jail cell.

And in this moment it felt more acutely like that than ever before. He set Silence on his door, put his water glass on the small desk in the corner, and then, without turning on his light or even removing his shoes, he fell into his bed and pulled the pillow over his head.

There were so many thoughts running rampant through his brain that he needed to sort out. Usually he’d be sitting with a pad of paper, making lists and carefully picking apart each thought and emotion into subsequent categories for analysis.

But science and study was no refuge for him now. 

Once, on a very long ago day, he’d been struggling through a particularly difficult cycle. Emotions had gotten the better of him and when Lup found him crying, she’d sat down with him and spoken to him with absolute compassion and concern, completely without judgement.

That had been his realization of the feeling that had been growing steadily in him. Respect and friendship had blossomed into love and that day he’d finally seen it.

Now? 

“Oh, what does it fucking matter,” he mumbled.

He’d always known this day would come, that finally his feelings would bubble too closely to the surface and she’d see what he felt for her. And he’d known she’d give him exactly what he’d gotten: pity and rejection. 

But he’d certainly never guessed it would come on the same day that she told  _ the fucking dragon _ that she’d only known for  _ ten fucking ‘dates’ _ that she fucking  _ loved _ him.

So under the cover of Silence and darkness, he wept. Hot, miserable tears fell and he resolutely ignored the feeling ghosting through that bond - the bond she shared with  _ Sildar. _

Lup kept a stash in her room, because you  _ had _ to, especially with Merle on board. (How that Dwarf hadn’t died of liver failure yet...) She poured herself a shot, neat and tidy, and knocked it back with the same grim determination that she showed when she was stumped with an experiment. Just digging in her heels and stubbornly refusing to budge until she got it.

Huh. Experiment. Well, let’s apply the scientific method to this little knot.

Question: Was Barry in love with her?   
Research: Nearly 30 years of closeness.   
Hypothesis: Barry was in love with her!   
Experiment: His reaction to her pity.   
Procedure: Decidedly not working at all.   
Analysis: She was a fucking horrible person and deserved what she'd just gotten.

Because in the moment his door closed on her, she realized something really fucking important too:  _ She was also in love with Barry. _

Oh, Pan’s bivalve flute, she really was a monster. How could she have possibly not known this about herself? All the years of laughter, the quiet companionship, the hugs, the way he made her coffee just how she liked it every morning in the lab...

And then another, even more unworthy thought: Sildar couldn’t fulfill her physical needs, but  _ Barry _ absolutely could...

Fuck. Wow. Just taking home the Fantasy Olympic  _ GOLD _ here tonight, the way her brain was working. She poured another shot, mouth set in a grim line, and downed it just as quickly as the first.

The stupid, self-loathing tears started just a few more seconds after that, and she just slumped across her desk, face buried in her arms, and cried.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warning for what could be construed as suicidal ideation. Stay safe, friends!

Barry woke up with a pounding head and a sour mouth. He hadn’t been drinking, had in fact barely ingested  _ anything _ since about the previous midday. But he felt as if he’d been kicked to shit and left in a cold ditch.

Then the events of the last few hours of consciousness returned and he managed to feel worse.

Sitting up, he wiped his eyes. His nose was sore where he’d slept in his fucking glasses like a fucking idiot and they’d dug into his face all night. Sliding out of bed, he straightened them on his face as best he could and stumbled to his desk for the glass of water he’d brought in. He practically sucked it down, feeling dehydrated after his night of self pitying tears.

And  _ then _ he remembered he had to leave the room. Face the crew. Face  _ her. _

There’d been times over the years that he’d considered the benefits of just running away. Sure, he’d eventually regenerate right back on the deck with the rest of the crew. Still, the only reason he hadn’t done it was the thought that his work in the lab or guarding someone’s back might be the difference between them living or dying.

But now? Now he had every reason to think that might be the best reason of all for him to go. Because facing everyone knowing what he knew, facing  _ Lup _ after that heart shattering little conversation? That was going to take everything he had to survive and it still might be too much strain for the bond engine. But if  _ he _ were gone… 

Nothing else for it. He’d find out sooner or later. Might as well stop hiding and act like the adult human he was pretending to be.

\---

Elves metabolized liquor differently than most races. It was one of those things that, along with Darkvision and meditation, just sorta came along with the package. Basically? A drunk elf stays drunk longer as their liver is more of a fine mesh rather than a sieve.

So Lup was out for a significant portion of the day, hiding in her room like a total coward. When she finally emerged, it was late afternoon, almost evening, and she looked awful. Red cheeks, puffy eyes, hair a mess.

She skittered off to the shower, mortified, and fortunately nobody spotted her or stopped her. 

It took her another hour to get herself looking even slightly presentable, and then decided to brave the kitchen for ‘breakfast.’ She needed all the carbs and salt and protein and caffeine in the plane to make up for this hangover.

“What in the name of Great Galloping Gottschalk as performed by Ludmilla DeClaire for the Imperial Philharmonic happened to  _ you _ ?” Taako asked as she slunk into the kitchen.

“Vodka and a good heaping helping of hating myself, thanks bro. Get out of my way, I need food.”

She sailed past him toward the pantry, looking for a potato she could shred into hash, and then to the fridge for eggs and bacon. (When they were in ‘empty of humanoids’ worlds, Taako’s transmutation really got a workout.) Then she put down all her ingredients, turned to her brother, and just said the thing that had sat heavily in her head and heart since she’d ducked into her room seeking answers in alcohol.

“Taako, am I a bad person?”

“I mean… I think after this morning we can say your sanity is a little in question but…” his eyebrows pulled together into one dramatic line roofing over his eyes. “What is this about? Did something  _ else  _ happen?” The solid line of artfully plucked eyebrow changed as one side quirked up. “Did you sneak out  _ again? _ ”

She shook her head, and turned back to place the cast iron skillet on the burner, snapping it on with a twist of her hand.

“It's just… had a revelation, and it made me really not like myself, is all.”

She sighed.

“I broke his heart, Taako. Without even realizing it.”

“Oh,” Taako answered softly. He moved up behind her, put his hands on her shoulders, and steered her over to the kitchen table, pushing her into a seat.

He plucked a paper napkin from the holder and pressed it into her hand then returned to the stove to take over the Official Twin Hangover Cure™.

“So you finally figured out the nerd has feelings for you, huh?” he asked quietly, his back to her as he started preparing the food.

She sat, and slumped, and then stared at the napkin. Gods, yeah, she did feel like crying again, but instead she just started crumpling the thin paper into a ball and then smoothing it out again, over and over.

“Yeah. And… and how could I have been so blind? I mean, he’s great! He’s smart, and he’s funny, and he’s an absolute sweetheart of a teddy bear… and now I’m honestly just… I don’t know…”

That came out as a warbly wail and she dropped her head down on the table.

“How is it possible to be in love with two people at the same time and still feel this shitty? I give up, I am never falling in love again, it sucks!”

“Mmmmmm,” was his only reply. 

“And the way he looked at me!” she ranted on, now gently bonking her head on the table. “Like I kicked his puppy! Oh, gods, I feel so godsdamned stupid! What am I supposed to do now? I can’t take back what I feel for Sildar! I wouldn’t! It would shatter him!”

She sat up again and looked at her brother’s back. “And I mean that  _ quite literally, _ Taako, if I tried to sever our bond it might destroy him and that would destroy me! But the more I think about it, the more I want to just run to Barry, throw my arms around him and just hug his brains out. He’s suffering and it’s all my fault!”

Taako flipped the bacon and remained silent. 

“And now I’ve pissed off Davenport, Lucretia, Merle, and now even Barry! Barry!! The sweetest man ever who’s  _ never _ pissed off and has  _ always _ been on my side! Because I’m a monster. I apparently fucked up so badly that even  _ YOU _ aren’t talking because you always interrupt my stupid rants and now you’re just standing there making bacon at me!”

“Lup,” he began, his voice so soft and affectationless that she barely recognized it. “You’re hungover.” He carefully rearranged the bacon to get the least done places in the hottest areas on the pan. Then he turned and braced his hip against the counter and faced his sister. 

“And because you’re hungover, I’m  _ very kindly _ not pointing out how far up your own ass you are.” He pointed the spatula at her then turned back to the stove. “At least not until you’ve gotten a boatload of carbs and grease in you to soak up whatever fucking rotgut swill you were drowning yourself in last night.”

Lup stared at her brother, eyes wide with some sort of emotion, and then she snorted.

“Except you totally just did,” she muttered, but stopped trying to destroy the napkin. Progress, at least.

The coffee maker finally stopped percolating, and she got up and poured herself a significant cup, not quite big enough to go swimming in, but damn close. And of course, the coffee just made her think of Barry again, and she dove back headfirst into her self-pity and self-loathing.

“I never wanted to hurt anybody,” she said quietly. “But I just hurt a whole lot of people in a very short amount of time. Of course I’m up my own ass about it.”

“Listen, sister-chick,” he said, pushing the bacon to one side and turning down the heat so he’d be able to add the eggs. “You get one day, one day to be up your own ass about it. And that clock started the moment you climbed into that bottle, so you’re burning it fast.” He waved the spatula before she could speak and added, “Don’t bother asking me for an extension, the rules are  _ very strict! _ ”

He started working on the hash, pausing just long enough to throw some two day old bread on the counter to slice as well. He aimed a pointed look at her, expecting her to recognize the extent he was willing to go for her, that he was going to make pan toast for her when the perfectly good four slot toaster was  _ right there. _

“So use the day well. Have fun exploring the depths of your own ass. But then, once that’s done? You have to climb back out and take a look around. Figure out how to start fixing it.”

Waving a hand over the skillet he made a face, calculating the temperature before shrugging and cracking in a trio of eggs. Then he glanced back at her face, sighed, and added a fourth.

Fixing it, she thought. Fixing it?

How the hell was she supposed to  _ fix it? _ She was in love with two people, she...

Oh.

Yeah, she was really that stupid. Sildar had tried again and again and again to explain to her that she was his flight. And she still kept circling back to romantic love, because that was really the only way she could parse what she was feeling. But ‘flight,’ she was starting to realize, wasn’t just ‘family’ to a dragon. 

Soulmates came closer, but still wasn’t right. She’d been so euphoric over her revelation that she hadn’t really thought through what it meant. He told her plainly, you are my bond-mate, my flight, and she thought that meant Happily Ever After like a dang fairytale.

“....Oh man, I’m such an idiot.”

“I hope you’re not waiting on an argument from me,” Taako offered as he plated the bacon and dumped in the shredded potato and diced onion. “Unless you were looking for a good excuse to  _ keep waiting! _ ”

Her urge to run to Barry and throw herself at his feet and beg forgiveness was high. But… she really needed to eat and shake off this hangover. So she forced herself to remain where she was, and swallowed another big gulp of her coffee.

“Taako? I know we reset every year but can you please tattoo the words ‘Lup Is A Dumbo’ backwards on my forehead so I never forget this moment? That way when I look in a mirror I’ll constantly remind myself.”

“I mean… I could do it on my head frontwards and it’d work about the same but like hell am I spoiling the more refined version of these features.”

He turned to face her, crossing his arms, spatula sticking out like a magic wand ready for battle, as he looked at her. “I don’t know exactly what’s going on in that inferior copy of our head you have but let me just say one thing.”

His mouth pulled into a grimace as he considered his words. “Be careful with Barold, okay? I’ve spent a long time shaping him into the nerd he is today and I don’t want all my work reset back to cycle one levels, capiche?”

“I will. I never…”

She trailed off, and looked down at her hands.

“I never want to see that expression on his face again.”

“Good.” He plated the eggs then scrambled the hash once the rest of the pan was free, adding heat again and letting it crisp up. “Well, not  _ good _ but…  _ better. _ ” He shrugged one shoulder up. “Gonna take a while to get to ‘ _ good, _ ’ I think.”

While the potatoes finished, he sliced the bread and slathered butter on it. Once the potatoes were on the plate, he dropped the buttered bread into the pan and let it fry in the last of the bacon grease while he gathered a fork and knife and actual cloth napkin for her.

He delivered the plate to her, bent and kissed her cheek, then socked her shoulder lightly with his fist. “Now eat, drown the booze in grease, and when you’ve finished mapping the depths of your own asshole, start with an apology to the Captain. He was over the line but so were you and that shit can’t fly for long if  _ we _ wanna keep flying.  _ Then _ figure out what to do about Barold and, Lup,” he picked up a piece of her bacon and pointed it at her, “I mean it, be gentle with the guy.”

Staring at the plate of food he’d slid in front of her, those stupid tears she'd been holding back finally made an appearance, and she felt them spill over without her permission. Welp. She nodded, unable to speak for a moment, and mopped at her face with that mauled napkin.

“I love you so much, Taako. Thank you.”

“Psssh, I know, I’m a saint, don’t mention it.” He took a bite of the bacon he’d grabbed, then his expression softened. “I love you, too, Lup.”

“Sap.”

And just to prove her point, she threw that napkin in his general vicinity and started in on her breakfast for dinner. Or dinner for breakfast, whatever, didn’t matter.

She’d always loved Taako’s hash browns, he got them just right.

\---

Lup closed the door on Davenport’s room, and felt a weight lift off her chest. They’d had a very frank, very mature discussion where concessions were made on both sides, and both of them walked away reassured and comforted. (And the Starblaster’s engine had stopped making that funny off-key sound...)

Stepping up onto the deck, she knew that her next conversation had the potential to go very wrong indeed, so she had to be very careful with her words. She mapped them out in her head well in advance, wrote them down in her notebook to make them concrete and real.

Barry had been in the lab all day. Other than a trip to the kitchen for a cup of tea when the only interaction he’d had was a wordless nod from Taako, he’d not even seen the rest of the crew. 

Which was absolutely more than fine with him. It was like that sometimes after a big flare up. Everyone knew to give each other some space until there were cool enough heads for apologies. They knew which side of the ship their bond engine worked, after all. The last thing they could afford to do was let things get out of hand long term.

But he knew it couldn’t last and it was with a sick, disappointed, complete lack of surprise that he saw an Illusory Script note drop in front of his nose in the lab.

**‘Come to the deck. Please? I have something I’d like to say to you, if you’ll hear me.’**

He desperately wished she’d picked somewhere less public. But at least she hadn’t surprised him in the lab. It was one of the few refuges he had and he’d definitely prefer to keep it that way, without the memory of an awkward formal rejection haunting the place. 

Of course, that didn’t stop him from imagining Sending a quick response of ‘ **It’s fine, I get it, no need for discussion. Gimme a little bit of time and I’ll be fine, thanks.** ’

Though on second thought, Illusory Script was far better since he wouldn’t have to hear her voice responding in his head.

But that’s not how things worked on the Starblaster, unfortunately. There was no “Give me some fucking space, you stay on your end of town and I’ll stay on mine and maybe next summer I won’t key your car if I see it parked outside my friend’s cousin’s second favorite pharmacy.”

Which meant he had to stand himself up from his chair, force his legs to carry him out of the door and down the hall and through the common room and up the steps to the command deck and out onto the actual deck of the ship where, yes, Lup was waiting.

She was seated firmly on her ass, knees up to her chin, and she was staring off into the horizon. When the door to the deck opened, the moon was just starting to peek over the plane at its oblique angle, still a slender sliver but waxing. She knew it was him, and she let out a long sigh of relief that he’d shown.

“Thank you.”

Her tone was quiet and humble, thanking him for coming so gracefully.

He took a deep breath and began. His voice was calm and even and it only shook a little. “Look, Lup, there’s no need for the whole big Make-Nice-For-The-Bond-Engine speech, okay? I know. I’ve  _ known. _ It’s why I’ve never said anything in almost thirty years. I  _ get it. _ It’s not your fault. It’s… it’s no one’s fault. It’s  **_fine._ ** ”

“Barry? That’s not what this is about at all. Please, come sit with me. Let me tell you.”

She finally turned to him, her blue eyes wide and open and vulnerable. Lup extended a hand to him, praying he’d take it.

_ Okay, _ he thought.  _ So we’re going to do it up official. Fine. I’m 986 years old - over a thousand if you count the cycles - so I’ll suck it up and deal for ten minutes like a fucking grown up. _

He was so focused on getting through this miserable scene, he didn’t even realize she was offering her hand. “Alright,” he agreed. He took a spot on the long bench along one side of the deck, leaving a few feet of empty space between them.

He set his palms on his knees and trained his eyes on a mark on the deck about six feet away. He was trying to look open and receptive but honestly he’d settle for not about to cry.

When he didn’t take her hand, she wanted to smack at him, yell at him, demand he fucking  _ listen _ . But she’d hurt him so badly, she had no right.

“I was wrong.”

She had to say it out loud, for it to really sink in.

“Magnus asked me if I was in love, and I said yes. It’s not that.”

Gods, she hoped she was saying this right. If she got this wrong after all her practice and thought, she’d  _ never _ forgive herself.

“I do love Sildar. I always will. But… I am madly _ in  _ love. With you.”

The words washed over him, almost meaningless. He was just desperately trying to get through this without sobbing like an overwrought child. He’d lived decades with this ridiculous hope in his heart and he just felt stupid and broken and having to sit here and make nice so the bond engine didn’t strand them in some kind of fucking timeout for bad crew members felt like  _ torture. _

“It’s okay, Lup. I get it. I…”

No. Wait. There was something wrong. His ears and brain didn’t pick it up but that bond, that ghost like trickle of the bond that was a raging  _ ocean _ cascading back and forth between them like some endless tide when he was in dragon form had gone hazy and turned a bitter yellow-green. Even in his human form he could feel it changing by the moment.

He looked up at her. “Wait. What?”

Lup let out another long sigh, and then a little laugh.

“Once upon a time, a stupid elf felt something too deep for her to really comprehend, and called it love. The person she directed that feeling toward kept telling her and telling her that there was nothing to do about it, but she kept labeling it wrong.

“Because what could an immortal feel for a mortal?

“So because this elf was an idiot, she totally overlooked something obvious for three decades, and chased a dream she shouldn’t have, right up until the bubble popped, and the dream faded. And that dumbass elf realized that her love for that being wasn’t going to give her what she really wanted.

“A partner. A spouse. A best friend. A man she really and truly admired. A man who had been so good to her for so long while she kept pretending she couldn’t see the truth.

“Barry… I said I was sorry. Those words don’t even come close. I love you.”

One time, when he was a whelpling, he’d gotten his wing caught on a branch while flying too close to a tree in a racing game with a few other younglings of his flight. It had torn the largest section of membrane and, aside from hurting more than an area with so few nerves should be able to hurt, he’d been completely unprepared to compensate quickly enough for the change it made to his flight. He’d smacked into a tree then plummeted like a stone to the forest floor where he’d hit his head  _ again _ on a large rock. For a few seconds he’d laid on the ground, staring up at the trees above and the sky beyond that, completely knocked out of his senses. He could still - hundreds of years later - remember the slow return of his awareness, remember that for a moment he’d somehow thought he was underwater and looking up at the surface.

That didn’t compare to this feeling  _ at all. _

For a very smart and experienced ‘immortal’ he felt very, very lost and confused at the moment. Even for a fifty something scientist he felt incredibly stupid. If he’d been the earliest form of basic slime to ever slicken a rock, he’d have still felt smarter than he did in this moment.

“I don’t… Lup…  **_What??_ ** ”

He turned and faced her directly, trying to figure out when the world had turned so strange, what had really happened that he was sitting here hallucinating or… Hmm. What if this was all part of that weird confusion when he hit his head?

But no, that couldn’t be it either. Because he simply wasn’t creative enough to have come up with this, to have invented  _ her. _

“But you can’t…” 

Lup had no verbal answer to that. Instead, she took his face in her hands, and kissed him gently, _ oh,  _ oh so very gently, on the lips.

Well, there was knocked senseless and then there was  _ kissed _ senseless. Turned out they were very different things. 

It was hard to explain what happened. The simplest description would be to say that Lup kissed Barry Bluejeans and the man essentially  _ melted. _

She drew back and he just stared at her. Words had vanished out of his head. Finally he managed a verbal response but it wasn’t exactly poetic. Or even in Common. As he’d done for many a year - certainly as long as Lup had known him - he fell back into draconic when he was completely at his wits end. At least this time it wasn’t one of the filthy sayings his mother would have been ashamed to know he’d learned.

“Svabol persvek wer wlekjr uoinotai?” (What in the nine hells?)

“Wux re vin malai.” (You are a moron.)

Those words spilled out of her mouth automatically, because of course she spoke Draconic. And then she kissed him again, because it felt so good, and so right.

Then, laughing, she demanded, “Sotsca ve!” (Kiss me!)

He did.

This wasn’t the soft, gentle, hesitant kiss she’d started with. It wasn’t even that wonderful encore she’d gifted him. 

Barry kissed her - already on their third kiss! - and it was a kiss seeking the truths of the universe, truths that could only be found on her lips. He kissed her and it was every longing look and wistful hope he'd ever carried. He kissed her and it was like blasting open that bond that ran between them and drowning them in the tide of it.

She melted into it, realizing that she wasn’t a horrible person, she wasn’t a monster. Because she felt this for him, she _ loved _ him!

Holy shit, she was in love with Barry Bluejeans.

When that kiss finally parted, she was gasping desperately, and clinging to him like a barnacle. Oh, oh hopefully Sildar would understand this lust, this need, this love. In fact, she was already sending him an update to their bond link, the sort of thing that would let him see Barry Bluejeans as he saw her. A bondmate. As  _ flight. _

“More,” she breathed against his open mouth.

He kissed her again, holding her in his arms like a fragile treasure that might break or disappear if he wasn’t very, very careful.

But this was a far more chaste kiss and when he stopped, he sat back slightly and looked at her. “Lup, are you… are you sure about this? I…  _ Oh, gods, _ I don’t want to break whatever magic made this happen but it just… I don’t… It’s hard to believe this is really happening. It’s not…” He took a deep breath. He had to ask. There was no way this could continue if it was out of pity or fear of the bond engine or… It didn’t  _ feel _ like those things but the echo down the bond wasn’t helping him figure it out, either. This could have been tied up with what she felt for the dragon. 

He might be the dragon but he was no dragon at the moment. Barry Bluejeans was about as  _ un _ dragon as they came. That had kind of been the point. But after so long… it was part of who he was, too.

“Lup, it’s not just because I… said… what I said… right?”

“No,” she whispered back. “All that did was make me realize. When I saw the look on your face, I understood. You’ve been my partner for almost thirty years already, Barry! We work together, we laugh together, we comfort each other and support each other… when I saw the look on your face, when I saw how  _ badly _ I’d hurt you, I realized I’d rather leap off this damn ship than ever hurt you again.

“Barry, listen, Sildar is _ flight _ , and I didn’t understand what that meant, so I called it love. And it is! It is love, it’s a deep and forever kind of love. But it’s not  _ this _ . Romantic love. I trust Sildar. But I  **trust** you. Like, trust you with my life, my heart and my soul, okay?”

She swept his hair off his forehead, and leaned up and pulled his glasses off, before folding the arms and tucking them in his shirt pocket.

“I trust you to have my best interests at heart, and never push me away. I trust you to talk with me, to tell me the truth, to understand me and let me understand you.”

That dug a thorn right into things. Truth wasn’t exactly something he’d offered a lot of.

“Lup… I don’t know if that… I mean you just found out I kept my feelings secret since … well, pretty much since we first met. Is ‘truth’ something you really trust from me right now?”

“Barry…”

He was so hard on himself. She was studying his face, eyes skimming all over, from the tip of his nose to his eyebrows, to the flecks of golden honey in his brown eyes.

“That wasn’t you hiding your feelings, that was me being oblivious. You said you hid your feelings, but you really didn’t. You make my coffee the way I like it. You hand me things before I even know to ask for them in the lab. You ask all the right questions to help me along in a hypothesis. You showed me every day, in a million little ways, just how much you love me. I was just too selfish and self-absorbed to understand.”

He cupped her face with his hand, let it rest there on her cheek. “Lup, you weren’t selfish or self-absorbed. But I think I have been. Like, it just… it was safer to love you and not say anything. To look after you in the ways that I thought I could without risking anything. I don’t know if…”

He honestly tried to drop his hand, but it was like his muscles had their own plan. A few other muscles decided to join the mutiny and he leaned forward and kissed her again.

This time it was Lup who deepened that kiss, like she was finding all the answers right here in his arms. And her hand on his hair turned into her fingers twining in it, and scraping her nails lightly along his scalp.

“Mmmmmm.”

And that was a very satisfied sort of hum.

He kinda let the rest of him join the mutiny for a bit, letting himself be aware of nothing more than the feel of their joined lips, the way her fingers felt on his head, the absolute delicious pleasure of her sound of satisfaction.

Unfortunately that also meant he was  _ not _ aware of the sound of the door opening to the deck.

“Hey, Lup! I was wondering if-” Magnus’s voice rang out as loud and boisterous as ever. Right up until his words crashed to a halt at the same time he did.

Barry’s hand dropped from Lup’s face and he met Magnus’s confused eyes.

“But what about… Uh…” Magnus was holding a stack of rough clay plates he’d obviously made to have target practice with Lup like they did sometimes.

Lup blinked, and then remembered where they were, where there was  _ absolutely no privacy ever. _

She stood up, smoothed her jacket down, and pinned Magnus with a look.

“Sildar,” she said firmly. “His name is Sildar. And I had a long night and a long day to think about some things, and the rest is between me and Barold here, capiche?”

“Hey, Lup, no judgement! I was just surprised! Do you, uh… do you wanna do some target practice? I found a nice clay deposit a ways up that stream and…” he gestured to the stack of thick plates he was carrying, “these cured up pretty good - enough for blowing up, anyway.”

He glanced at them both, at Barry’s bright red face and Lup’s unsmiling one. “Or I can just fuck off.”

“What do you think, Maggie?”

“Fucking off I go!” he said cheerfully, leaving them alone again.

And then Lup burst into wild, gasping giggles, burying her face in Barry’s shoulder and just letting it all out.

He held her, rubbing her shoulder, feeling her lean into him as she laughed. It was a very, very nice feeling. Maybe not the wash of emotion flowing through the bond he’d felt as a dragon, but also something that felt more…  _ real. _

Which was ridiculous because he was  _ less _ real, now, wasn’t he? He was a dragon in an illusory human form. Sure, it was far more solid than most people would consider possible. Ancient dragon magic did tend to work a little differently than people understood, after all. But...

Maybe ‘real’ wasn’t the right word. Maybe ‘even’ was a better word. Dealing with Lup in his dragon form was a bit of a power imbalance. He was practically immortal to her, an enormous, powerful, and mostly mystical creature. And yeah, she was  _ Lup _ and thus pretty fucking powerful and mystical to  _ him. _

But as Barry Bluejeans he was just… a guy. Her lab partner. Her friend. Someone who she could see as an equal.

Stroking his fingers over her hair, through the loose strands, following the braid trailing down her back, he considered everything. “Magnus brings up a good point, though, Lup. Like this has been a… lot. For you. For me. For the whole crew, really. I mean…” he sighed, a sound full of longing. “I  _ really _ want to spend about a week just sitting here kissing you. I want to charge into this a thousand percent, no speed limit. But also? I think… Lup, if there’s something here? Something real and right and good and lasting? Then we owe it to that possibility to try to do things right, you know?

“Lup, I love you. I really do. And I’m not saying you’re confused or don’t know your own mind or heart. But… you’ve been through so much in just one day. Let’s slow down and think about this, okay?”

She knew he was right. He was so obviously right. They really should slow down, figure this out in increments. Less than 12 hours ago she thought she was in love with somebody else, that bond of theirs just as powerful on her end as his. (Oh, sure, she couldn’t sense his emotions in return, but she was just as drunk on that bond as he had been, frankly.)

So, rationally, objectively, like a scientist, she examined both of these feelings, and realized they were  _ one and the same _ . Her love for Sildar, her love for Barry… they were precisely the exact same feeling. Only one could she physically act on, but that bond, that  _ deep and forever bond _ was there, exactly identical. 

Her time with Sildar had given her something neither expected: A more intimate knowledge of how bonds worked, and what they felt like.

But this time it didn’t bring a wave of guilt and self-loathing.

It brought a momentary sense of confusion, followed by the barest beginnings of a question forming in the depths of her subconscious.

She hummed softly, a subtly fond expression on her face, and nodded.

“I like no speed limits,” she confessed. “It’s why I like flying with Sildar. But… okay, Barry. I don’t ever want to hurt you again.

“How about… one last kiss and then we’ll call it a night, and think about things?”

Offering her a smile she’d never seen before, one soft and sweet and utterly open and untroubled, he answered, “I’d like that.” 

Oh, gods. That smile undid her.

And then he leaned in and kissed her again. His palm went to her cheek again, fingers curling gently against the side of her neck. He kissed her and let all worries float away. If they loved each other then they could get through this and figure it out.

If he’d melted before, this was her turn to melt, going all boneless and floppy and useless against him as they kissed, until he tried to pull back, and she chased him, which happened at least three times.

She wanted this ‘one last kiss’ to last for a while, please.

When they finally broke apart it was with a synchronized pull of breath. His hand stayed on her face a moment longer, reluctant to break contact.

Finally he did, though. Standing, he leaned down and brushed a kiss across her temple. “Thank you,” he said. He didn’t know how else to put it. But… she’d seen him. He’d thought he was invisible and she’d seen him. Seen him and loved him. 

Stepping back, he laughed, then leaned down one more time and kissed her again. “Okay. That was, uh, one for the road?” 

“That’s gonna be our excuse from now on, isn’t it?” she giggled, ducking her head almost bashfully.

He laughed again, feeling giddy. Gods, she made everything seem so  _ possible. _ “How the hell am I supposed to walk away now?”

She stood and took his hand, and gave him a look so saucy, it should be banned by law.

“That’s the nice thing, Barold. Even if we’re not actively smooching… you’re not walking away. We’re still both right here. Walk me back to my room?”

He offered her his arm, the gesture feeling both incredibly awkward and yet natural at the same time. 

“What a gentleman!” she teased, as she took his arm.

There was so much spinning in his head but there was also an overwhelming feeling of optimism flowing around him.

“I have to say, Lup… I’m walking off this deck with a much different attitude than I came out here with. I…” He shook his head. “I still can’t believe all this…”

He ran his hand over her fingers curled around his arm. “I thought it was going to kill me, coming here and hearing you gently let me down and remind me that we had the bond engine to think of… I was just trying to hold myself together and get through it.”

“I’ll admit, I rehearsed what I wanted to say to you several times before I sent you that note. I didn’t want to get it twisted.”

Leaning into him, she put her head on his upper arm and let him lead the way back down to her room.

“I’m so glad you came.”

“Of course I came. You asked me to.”

“But you didn’t have to, and you did. That’s why it makes all the difference in the world.”

For a few moments they just walked together, her hands on his arm, both basking in the moment.

“So,” he said, “if you practiced it does that mean I could ask you to say it again? Because I think I was too stunned to hear much of it.”

“I can give you the bullet points,” she teased, turning her face and nuzzling that arm she was holding. But then she looked back up at him with a slightly more serious expression.

“I do want to make this clear, though. If you’re with me, you  _ need _ to meet Sildar. Because he’s flight. And I’m only just now starting to get what that means. That’s why I called it love, because it  _ is _ but it’s also not. You love me? That means you’re flight, too, and we need to make that official as soon as we can.”

He was quiet, considering what she’d said. And even while he was mentally spinning his wheels, trying to come up with a plan that didn’t involve illusory dragons he’d have to try and puppet or something, he was also appreciating that she gave him the space to think about it, the time to process his response.

“Okay.” The word came out slowly, the two little syllables hesitant.

“But… I think he and I should do this alone, come to our own understanding without worrying that we’re letting you down. Do you know what I mean?”

“That’d be fine!” she said immediately, a huge grin lighting up her face. “Oh, Barry, the fact that you’re even willing to talk to him...!”

She stopped their forward motion and turned to him fully, pulling him into a fierce hug. Feeling ten thousand percent better about everything, she squeezed his middle tight with her face buried in his chest.

“Thank you.”

Hugging her back, he clung to her just as fiercely. 

It was all so complicated and now he was outright lying to her. He was going to have to tell her. There was no other choice. He couldn’t allow this to continue, try to begin a relationship with her with this enormous secret between them. He couldn’t leave her stuck trying to understand her feelings for him and the dragon when he was holding the answer that would explain it all. Couldn’t lie about having meetings with himself and make up fake conversations.

_ I can have one day,  _ he promised himself.  _ I’m going to give myself one day to process this, to figure out how to finally come clean about it all. _

He was terrified. There was so much on the line: the bond engine, the whole crew, his own need to rely on those bonds. And now this burgeoning thing between them, something that already felt real and wonderful.

But making the resolution to tell her was a tiny fraction taken off of the weight in his chest.

He squeezed her, rubbing her back, and rocking them slightly. “I’m going to try my damnedest to be worthy of you, Lup,” he promised. “It might take some time but I’m going to do it, I swear.”

“Silly man,” she murmured. “You already are.”

Then she stepped back, and put a tender hand on his chest, right over his heart. And the expression on her face was so impossibly fond, it felt unreal.

“But… okay. Compromise. I’m supposed to meet Sildar in a month, during the new moon. And I know that’s  _ really _ close to regen, but maybe it will be for the best. That way, we both have the time we need to process all of this, and then you can chat with Sildar and he can explain all of the bonds to you. How important they all are. Okay? One month.”

“Okay,” he agreed, intending to explain it all well before that point.

But then, immediately, he wondered if he should at least wait until after regen. They were so close to the end of this cycle… Maybe waiting was better. In a few weeks they’d escape this plane with the Light and regen. If he waited until after that, he’d have a year for them to deal with the damage of his secret finally coming out.

They made it to her door and he paused, unsure how to conclude things. Wasn’t he supposed to kiss her? But wasn’t he supposed to  _ not _ do that?

She saw that expression on his face, and she might not be able to feel exactly what he did over their bond, but she was able to know his heart after nearly thirty years together.

“You’re thinking too hard,” she whispered, and stood up on tiptoe to kiss him softly. Not one of those searching, open-mouthed kisses they’d shared a bit ago, but something soft and loving and affectionate.

“Do what feels right, Barry. I’m learning that, too. It’s difficult. But… oh, Barry, it’s so worth it.”

“Okay.” What else could he do but agree with her? She’d used Charm Person on him years ago without ever blowing a spell slot.

He pulled her to him for another quick hug. “Good night, Lup.”

Backing away, he couldn’t stop grinning at her. It was hard to believe how little time had passed since he’d been a miserable, sullen mess, trying to figure out how to bury his feelings. Now he was trying to get a hold of them just to keep from shouting about them.

“Or.. well... Uh,” he looked around, suddenly realizing what time it was. “I guess not exactly good night. It’s…” He flushed, embarrassed. “Uh... I’ll.. um... head back to the lab. I don’t know that my concentration will be any better now than it was but I guess I should try while we’ve got the Light. Uh, congrats on that, by the way.”

She backed into her room, still grinning, and that devolved into a high, girlish giggle that if Taako heard it? She’d never hear the end of his razzing.

And then she ran back out of her room and back into his arms, pressing her face into his chest and never wanting to let go.

Barry laughed as he caught her. He wanted to spin her around in his arms and cover her face in kisses. But... they needed to slow down a second and think about things. There was wisdom in that, he was sure, even if it didn’t feel that way at the moment.

“I mean, I just barely woke up three hours ago, I could come help you with the Light if you want. I’m not tired. Oh man, my sleep schedule is gonna be _ fucked _ until we regen, heh. Can I come help in the lab, Partner?”

“Uh, yeah! That’d be great. I mean... I don’t know how I’ll get any work done if you’re there but I’ll have to figure that out at some point, right? Might as well start now.”

And then, because - miracle of miracles - he _ could _ , he pressed a kiss on the top of her head, lingering a moment to appreciate the closeness and the familiar scent of the shampoo in her hair.

_ And bacon. And... _

“LUP! I smell the Official Twin Hangover Cure™!”

She stood back, blinking sheepishly, and gave him a grin that was half sincere and half a grimace. She was so busted, fuck.

“Uh. Yeah. Sorry. I might have, uh. Felt a little too sorry for myself last night. Look, in my defense! I haven’t gotten that drunk in a hot second!”

“ **_You_ ** felt sorry for yourself?!” 

His tone wasn’t competitive, it was utterly shocked.

“Yeah! I mean, I realized that I fucked up _ real  _ bad, Barold. I hurt you so much. The look on your face… fuck.”

She buried her face back in his chest and sighed.

“I hurt you. And you still came to talk to me. I know I don’t deserve you.”

“Hey, stop that. Please. I’m not perfect, you’ll definitely realize that soon enough.” His voice was soft, worried. What if she found out his secret and it was too much for her? How would they be able to live on the ship together after that?

“But I swear to you, Lup, whatever mistakes I make, whatever fuck ups I do? It’s all in _ trying _ to do the best I can. I just... Lup, I wanna do right by you. Give you everything you deserve. Be the… be the person you deserve.”

He took a deep breath and shook off the serious tone, exchanging it for another sweet, soft smile. “I love you, Lup.”

Lup swallowed hard, and then looked up at him, taking him all in. Her Barry.

And then her expression shifted, just ever so slightly, and her eyebrows furrowed just a little. Because she already knew what her bond with Sildar was, and her bond with her Barry Bluejeans, and she knew they were the same feeling...

The bond engine in the rear of the ship whirred slightly louder for just a split second as Lup really _ grasped _ that.

“...Like I said,  _ I _ don’t deserve  _ you _ , not the other way around. I love you so much.”

“You know the others are going to give you a hard time, right? After ... everything?” He tried to make it a joke but there was a cold note of worry buried in his words, the fear that it wouldn’t be worth it, that  _ he _ wouldn’t be worth it.

“Pfft, whatever!” she said, with a little wave of her hand. “Magnus is on our side, and for sure Taako is. Merle’s gonna be _ thrilled _ and Creesh is just gonna write down that I’m a doofus…”

Which left one very important person off the list.

“Davenport… well. He and I had a good long talk just before I sent you that note, and we’re cool. But what worries me is he’s still very firmly anti-dragon. And if you're in Sildar's flight too, it's gonna get sticky. I don’t know what to do about it. He’s gonna go into that meeting with Sildar so aggressively not listening to anything…”

Barry couldn’t come up with a single thing to say. It was the thing he’d been afraid of for decades now. 

Finally he stuttered out, “Wh- what... what can we do, Lup?” He shook his head, eyes going unfocused and a little wild. For a moment they almost seemed to flicker but it might have been a reflection on his glasses. “This could really tear the whole crew apart.”

“Hey…”

She put one hand gently on his chest, and then moved up to cup his face.

His spiraling panic halted when she touched him so gently, so tenderly, so  _ lovingly.  _ His eyes settled, that strange flicker of blue disappeared, and only a warm, deep brown remained. 

“What we do is what we’ve always done,” she told him. “We  _ learn. _ We work. We trust in each other. We gently steer our beloved captain away from some pretty ingrained beliefs. We  _ talk. _ We listen. That’s...that’s the hard one sometimes, but I know we can make it happen. Okay? Don’t panic, Sil…”

Her eyes blew wide as she caught her mistake. Oh, fuck. FUCK. She just started to call Barry  _ Sildar;  _ he was definitely not going to forgive her for  _ that _ . Fuck!

He’d begun nodding, agreeing with her but the movement stalled at the single syllable, the verbal misstep that froze him. 

“I mean… oh, shit…”

“Lup.” His mouth turned into a flat line, almost as flat as his tone. “Maybe too much happened too fast. Maybe...”

He looked away, eyes pinned on the darkness at the end of the hall. “Maybe you’ve just gotten confused about some things.”

Lup shattered.

She just shut down. Her face went blank, and her eyes went blank, and she stepped out of his arms. Sildar had warned her that he could feel everything she felt, so right now the poor thing was probably feeling his bonded’s entire emotional spectrum just plunge into pure darkness. She’d have to apologize to him later. If there was a later; for all she knew her distress had just severed  _ their _ bond too.

“...Right,” she finally said, her voice flat and grieving. “Yeah. Guess so. Confused. Sure.”

Taako had tried to warn her, and she’d fucked it up anyway.

“Guess you’re right. So…”

She didn’t finish the sentence, she didn’t even try to look him in the eye as they spoke. Instead, mechanically, like some vital part of her was missing, she just turned back to her room and closed the door.

He didn’t move. He didn’t  _ breathe. _

How long had he gotten? Maybe 20... 30 minutes of being happy? Half an hour of believing things could... be okay. That Lup loved  _ him _ and that he could tell her who he was and they’d fix  _ everything. _ That together they could face anything.

But he was just a stand in. The idiot friend, like a little puppy following her around making eyes at her and desperately begging for attention. So much easier than all the ... _ considerations. _ .. involved in being in love with a dragon. 

Well. He might not be much, but he was not a stand in. Not for anyone.

Even, he realized, himself.

He closed his eyes. The ancient heart inside him continued to pump. His lungs refilled. His blood continued to flow somehow despite it feeling like ice.

Barry Bluejeans, the overweight, entirely forgettable looking man, the human who appeared to be fifty-two, with bad eyesight, anxiety, and depression, opened his eyes again. He turned and walked away from her bedroom door.

_ One day, _ he promised himself again, though now that promise of time was so much different.  _ You can live with this for one day and then you think of the bond engine and the crew, and you deal. _

He wanted the alcohol she’d disappeared into the night before. He wanted to launch himself off the deck, shed his clothes, shed his form, and soar in the sky as a dragon. He wanted to fly away.

And never come back.

\---

Davenport stood at the wheel of the Starblaster, aiming it toward the coordinates that Lup had provided as her meeting spot with the dragon. For the last month, he’d noticed that there was a drag on the engine, but every time he tried to find its source, it slipped through his grasp. Everybody was…  _ fine. _ Their friendships intact, their companionship deep and loving. Even the suspected source, Barry and Lup, had been nothing but unfailingly polite to each other.

Davenport forgot, apparently, that ‘polite’ and ‘kind’ were not synonymous.

He set the ship down inside the clearing where Sildar was due to land tonight, expecting a meeting with Lup and instead getting the full crew. Davenport was still of the opinion that even having a passing conversation was a bad idea, but Lup’s well-being was on the line now, too.

Lup was getting ready with the rest of the group, when he finally put his foot down. She started to have a fit, but then just as suddenly shut herself down, and nodded meekly that she’d be the one to stay with the ship. Suspicion rolled off Davenport in waves, but that meant he was able to demand that Barry come along with the rest of the crew to meet this thi-... this dragon.

Davenport stood in the doorway of the lab, looking at Barry expectantly.

“Are you all ready to leave?” Barry asked, standing, ready to go take the helm. The plan was to take the ship to a distance so the  _ dragon  _ couldn’t attack it easily. And come back when it was safe.

Of course he’d be returning with their ride a little late.

“Not exactly,” Davenport answered. “You’re coming.”

“What? No, I’m taking the ship.”

“I’ve ordered Lup to take the ship. I think it’s better if she’s not there. We can all deal with this th- situation without her…  _ interference.” _

“Dav, I really think it’d be better if you let me-”

“I’ll make it an order if necessary, Science Officer.”

Barry’s mouth went dry. Fuck.  _ Fuck. _

“No, sir. Not necessary.” 

“Very well. On deck in five.”

And with that, the captain turned and left the room.

Barry stood with his hands hanging at his sides, fingers cold and numb. What the hell was he supposed to do now?

\---

Lup sat at the helm, brain taking in all the data and parsing it. She’d been given an order, and she was going to follow it.

But gods _ damn _ it, why couldn’t Davenport see her as… as an ambassador?! A calming voice to soothe tensions? But then she thought about Barry and Sildar facing each other, and she nearly sobbed. The black hole in her heart had only grown over the last month, and all she could do was hope and pray that Sildar would force the issue, and explain everything to Barry like he’d explained to her.

After the other six stepped into  _ her _ clearing, she lifted the Starblaster and parked it a mile north of them, still seething, still utterly heartbroken. 

Adding to that, she was so anxious for Sildar. It was almost the end of the cycle. What if he didn’t make it? What if this was the time where he never came back? This might have been the last chance for her to see him… and she’d let it go for fear of upsetting her family.

Closing her eyes, she sent a wave of emotions to her love.

_ Love them. Trust them. Please. _

There was a slightly sour note in the bond engine. She knew the reason why, but fixing it was absolutely and totally beyond her. She’d fucked up so badly with the man she loved, and he’d clearly never forgive her.

Barry stood in the clearing, the only one of the six of them whose eyes were watching not the blue expanse of cloudless sky but instead the gleaming silver ship as it took off and disappeared into the horizon.

A wash of emotion poured through the bond and he stumbled, hands shooting out automatically to brace himself but unable to physically recover from an entirely non-physical upheaval. If he’d been in dragon form it might have knocked him out of the fucking sky, plummeting him like a stone under the force of it.

“Whoa, there, Barold, you okay my man?”

“Uh, yeah,” he answered, though in no way was he sure that he was. How the fuck had she even been  _ able _ to do that? He nodded at Taako, full of appreciation for his concerned friend, for the elf who he’d never thought would accept him much less care about him.

He turned back, five pairs of eyes watching him. Well, four. Lucretia was looking down at whatever she was sketching. He wished he could see what it was. Was she drawing the five of them standing here awaiting the arrival of the dragon? Whatever it was, he was sure she’d captured it perfectly.

Magnus’s eyebrows were raised, ready to rush in and do whatever needed doing, probably. Barry’s heart swelled just looking at him, his eager and protective friend. He smiled at him and promised, “I’m fine, Magnus.”

The tension drained from the fighter and he sat down beside Merle, who was lying back in the grass staring up at the sky as if this was just an afternoon picnic instead of a meeting with a possible adversary. Barry respected him so much, impressed that he could have that attitude. Even as much as he disliked dragons, he was out here making the best of the situation. Barry admired that quality immensely.

Davenport paced anxiously past him, eyes peeled on the sky. Barry felt another surge of affection wash over him. Davenport was just concerned about his crew, about their ship and their mission and all that hung in the balance. All the multiverses were counting on the job they were doing. Davenport had taken on so much, had made his small shoulders the pedestal for all the worries and concerns of their entire group. No matter what happened, Davenport was not his enemy.

He loved them all. He  _ trusted _ them. Somehow, maybe not today, but eventually, they’d make this work.

Taako, on the other hand, was seething.

He knew what was up, he knew exactly how bad things had broken between Lup and Barry. And he was Big Fuckin’ Mad™. His sister was in love, and said love had been blown to hell and back for - as far as he could tell -  _ no real good reason _ .

He’d never been angry at his sister before. He was angry with her now, clearly having not taken his advice. He was angry with  _ both _ of them. Taako slid over and sat next to Barry. He was feigning nonchalance, but he was actually full of chalance. Chalance out the wazoo over here, yo.

“Whatever happened? Fix it,” he said bluntly, buffing his nails against his shirt. “Fix it ASAP, Barold. I’m not gonna tell you again.”

“Taako,” Barry began, his eyes feeling misty. He didn’t even ask what Taako meant. It was as clear as the emotions surging through him, as clear as the wide sky above them. 

“It’s nothing I  _ can _ fix. All I can do is accept it. Which I’m doing.” His eyes strayed back to the bit of horizon where the Starblaster had disappeared. “I know the engine comes first. I’m not making a problem.”

“Bullshit. Yes, you can. You can tell her that her love for this fuckin’ lizard is nothing. You can tell her that you’re going to care for her no matter what. You can… you can fuckin’ stand up for yourself, you dingus. Stand up for  _ her. _ Look, would you be jealous if she told you she loved me? Because that’s the whole sitch, Bluejeans. Get the fuck over yourself and just apologize.”

An acid green curl of jealousy seemed to wind its way up into the wash of emotion from the bond. At the same time a dirty red haze of anger began to take root as well.

“Taako? I love you like a brother and best friend. I trust you entirely.

“But you don’t know what you’re talking about.” His hands were trembling and he forced them into stillness, resting firmly against the denim of his jeans. “‘Get over myself?’” he echoed. “Taako, she  _ doesn’t love me. _ Don’t you think she’d have figured it out before now if she did? It was only when she came back after a date with the dragon, high on life and seeing everything through rose colored glasses, that she thought she  _ might. _ It took a grand total of twenty minutes for that to fizzle. So no, I don’t think ‘getting over myself’ will do much to change that. I’m over myself. I’m  _ entirely _ over myself.”

“Bullshit!”

Taako finally dropped the careless attitude and shoved Barry with both hands. His palms met his chest and shove him back, and back and back, until they were out of earshot of the crew.

“You two are so far up your own asses I have to fuckin’ intervene. Barry. I know you’re going to immediately ignore this but Lup loves you. Has done for several planes. Several  _ decades. _ Apologize to her and tell her-”

Taako’s confrontation had the incredibly poor timing as to happen just as Barry realized what that wash of emotion through the bond had truly been: a message from Lup for  _ Sildar, _ a desperate plea to  _ her dragon. _ It broke the last shreds of his calm.

“What the hell do you want me to apologize FOR exactly?” Barry asked, his voice low and angry, a tone none of them had ever heard from him. “You want me to apologize for being in love with her? Or for trying to keep that to myself? Or for accidentally letting it slip at the worst possible time? Sure! Why not? I’ll apologize for all of that!” He nodded angrily, glasses sliding down his nose. “Or maybe I should apologize for being an idiot and believing  _ for a minute _ that it wasn’t some great and glorious fucking  _ dragon _ she was in love with but actually the fat stupid schlub that had been  _ right there beside her _ for thirty years? FINE! I’ll fucking apologize for that as well! Maybe I should apologize for eating my own fucking heart over this for weeks since, just so the fucking bond engine could keep running! Or maybe I should apologize for even being here! For being the one person in all the multiverse who absolutely, positively should  _ never  _ have ended up on this crew!”

He was shaking, his whole body trembling with a rage that had built up into a fiery inferno over the course of his speech. That wash of love and trust had evaporated under it. His voice went low and coldly furious again. “I’ll take being wrong. I’ll take being stupid. But I will  **not** take you telling me that I’m the one fucking up when  _ she! doesn’t! love me!” _

And with that he turned on his heel and stalked away, too furious to face any of them anymore.

Taako’s jaw dropped. He had never seen Barry like that before. It was… holy shit. 

He started to chase after him, but the best laid plans...

Without warning, the colors started to drop out of the world, that purple grass suddenly faded and gray. And a silent, seething, motionless storm gathered across the cerulean sky.

The Hunger had arrived. Almost seventy-two hours early. And so  _ fast. _

“Lup! Get the Starblaster airborne and get back here!” snapped Davenport into his comm device, as the crew looked up into their adversary’s destructive path. At least this time they had the Light, and the world would be spared from being devoured.

“Barry!” called Taako, running after the man to grab his arm. “You do belong on this crew. You belong here with us! Barry, c’mon, you’re my best friend aside from Lup! Don’t do this to me, either!”

Barry nearly shook off Taako’s hand, too lost in his fury for anything but total rejection of any attempt to reach out, physical  _ or _ verbal.

But there was another one reaching out at the same time. A new emotion flooded through the bond in an overwhelming rush. It was clearer than words, a desperate warning threaded through with concern and fear and  _ love. _

He startled to a stop again, once more hit with an almost physical force by the emotion coursing out of the bond. Another message to her dragon, he thought, feeling sick.

Taako’s touch turned steadying as Barry looked around, finally seeing the change that had happened to the world around them.

Barry’s fury crumbled away. His strength flooded out of him. It was too much. The flood of emotions from the bond. His own extreme reactions unlike anything he’d ever experienced in his long, long memory. And now  _ this. _ He fell to his knees then sagged back on his heels.

“Go,” he told Taako, his voice barely a whisper. “Just go.”

Lup hurtled the Starblaster skyward. Getting to the rest of the crew would be easy, a mile eaten up in seconds.

But, gods, what long, long seconds they were.

Because right then, all that she could think about was Barry. Not Sildar, not the rest of the crew, but Barry. Something told her that they were about to lose him, and she was suddenly terrified of that. Some base instinct, some sort of tremor in her soul, screamed that he was slipping away forever.

When the Starblaster set back down, Lup lowered the gangplank and was running, running like crazy, to get to her family. But most of all, to get to Barry.

Davenport was up the gangplank like a streak, his shorter legs moving with a speed none but his crew would have guessed possible. “We’re up in  _ seconds! _ ” he screamed. He couldn’t believe Lup had left the controls when time was so crucial but he didn’t stop to question it before passing her for the Captain’s seat. 

Magnus had stood up in the field but not yet run for the ship. There was nothing here to fight for. They had the Light. This plane was unoccupied. But somehow it felt like there was a fight he needed to rush into. He helped Merle up and looked around, saw Davenport running up the gangplank, Lucretia hot on his heels.

And then across the field he saw Barry, staring away from the ship, on his knees in the dirt, and Taako yanking at the man’s shoulder.

Without hesitation he took off running, not pausing as he told Merle to get to the ship. He knew that as long as the ship got out it didn’t matter who was on board. But he also knew he was needed across the field. He ran faster.

And yet, Lup was faster still. Because she had fuckin’ magic powers!

She cast Dimension Door with a flick of her hand, and was instantly at Barry’s side from across the field. In fact, she was almost on top of him, and immediately threw herself into his arms, grabbing him across the shoulders and just dog piling on him.

“Don’t go!” she cried, apropos of nothing in particular. All she had was that feeling in her gut, that he was about to slip away forever. 

A vision of what a regen would do to Barry Bluejeans if he cut off all his bonds...

There would  _ be _ no regen. They’d get to the next cycle, and Barry just… wouldn’t be there. And she couldn’t let that happen. Not to the man she loved so much. Even if he was angry with her, even if he never loved her back for her stupid slip-up, she  _ would not let him go. _

There was a war going on inside Barry Bluejeans. Inside Sildar of the Crystal flight.

His own emotions and the strange, overwhelming pulses from the bond, his grief and joy and confusion and absolute  _ despair, _ all of it had turned into a maelstrom inside him, a storm to rival the one settling over their heads.

He was mildly aware of voices, of touch, of things going on outside his illusioned form. But none of it could be understood over the cacophony inside him. 

“Just  _ go, _ ” he said miserably, with no awareness of who he was even speaking to. Maybe himself. 

It didn’t matter. 

He was tired of fighting, tired of the struggle within him and around him, tired of the push and pull and constant attempt to balance things among the crew and in his own  _ soul. _

“Just let  _ go _ ,” he begged, his voice broken and so, so exhausted. “ _ Please _ let go.”

_ “Never.” _

She held on even tighter, her face pressed against his, her arms still tightly around him. Taako followed her lead, because they were twins, of course they got each other. Taako suddenly understood just what was at stake here, and was on Barry immediately, wrapping his arms around the man too, his face mushed into Barry’s opposite shoulder.

“You don’t get to tell us that, Barold,” he said quietly. “Y’ain’t that slick.”

And then Magnus was there, skidding to a stop in the gray-tinged grass, and he was grabbing all three in his arms, a bear hug that really lived up to the name, fierce and protective. Barry found himself surrounded on all sides by the people who loved him the most.

“I've got you,” Magnus promised, not trying to get them to the ship. Just staying there, holding them all and meaning every word.

“Barry,” Lup whispered. “Forgive me. I love you so much…”

A dolphin can be transported out of water but will need to be constantly supplied with enough moisture to keep their skin wet, to be supported in a way their organs can continue to function while outside of their near weightless normal environment. But the creature cannot survive indefinitely in this state.

A similar thing had happened to the man/dragon before them. For too long he’d held himself separate from others as much as possible. He was a creature  _ made _ for bonds, a creature whose existence depended on them in a way that others needed air or food. Barry/Sildar had gotten by on the bare minimum to survive, subsisting on the muted sense of bonds that came in his human form, on the tenuous connection of acquaintances and coworkers. And he’d done it for hundreds of years. Even when, over the last three decades, those bonds had gotten more substantial they were still not what he  _ needed _ because he’d all but forgotten what it was like to have them, to feel them, to  _ accept _ them.

And then, over the course of a few brief meetings, Lup had dunked him back into the ocean and let him swim again. He’d been awash in bonds,  _ drunk _ on them, even. He’d gone back into human form and those emotions had flooded out of control. Love. Jealousy. Grief. Instead of being buoyed by the bonds and emotions, he’d been buffeted by them, a hummingbird in a hurricane.

Now he’d given up.

But they wouldn’t let him. 

There was a lifeline being thrown to him, a thick rope built by three of the strongest bond builders he’d ever known. They surrounded him, anchored him, held him, and would not let go.

The last of his desperately held together walls cracked. He sobbed, emotions leaking out of him in tears and pulsing off of him in waves. Had they looked, they might have seen a similar effect to the Hunger’s draining of color, this time on his skin. Instead of the shining joy of Sildar when sustained by the bonds, he was the opposite, he was darkened and colorless, an absence of light.

Because at long last that absence was leaking out of him as he was filled instead with the bonds to those who surrounded him, with the love of the ones who cared for him the most. 

Lup’s heart broke with his, and she  _ kept not letting go. _

Taako let out a little sigh of distress, and he  _ kept not letting go. _

Magnus squeezed even harder, and he  _ kept not letting go. _

Lup’s face was still pressed against Barry’s, and then she was crying, too, their tears mingling on their skin. In the distance, she could hear the Starblaster rising into the sky, and she could hear its engine.

It was beautiful. It was harmonizing with itself as the ship began its climb, as the bonds began to strengthen again, as she finally went to him instead of letting him hide himself away.

“You are  _ mine, _ Barry Bluejeans,” she whispered, for his ears alone. “I love you. I love you.  _ I love  _ **_you._ ** _ ” _

Working his arms free, he clutched at the three of them as best he could, holding on for all he was worth.

Around them, pillars of blackness shot through with red and yellow and green and blue plunged into the ground. The four of them remained in place, holding tight. The sound of the Starblaster disappeared and still the four of them didn’t move. Darkness enveloped everything, shadow shapes stalking towards them.

Threads of light began to spin away from them, whipping through the shadow creatures like bladed ribbons. 

His form held on a moment longer, the bond tethers pulling at him, the three around him dissolving into those brilliant, gleaming strands. His human exterior fell away and for one shining instant a dragon took its place, standing rampant, an explosion of light erupting from his mouth in a show of pure joy and absolute love.

And then he was pulled apart as well, the strands of him racing away into the sky, stretching across the planar system to be rebuilt somewhere far away, stitched into place again by the bond engine, reunited with his family.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please consider leaving a comment. There is so much more story here, folks, and the writing is a thing of love for both of us. Editing and posting? Not so much. If you want to know how she finds out he's a dragon, how every other major story beat translates when Barry is a dragon, what changes, how MUCH is filled in on the cycles unspecified in canon, then trust me, we've written it. There will be more in this series!! We're literally wrapping up this story, quickly approaching the very end. It's over 550,000 words, okay? (First draft anyway.) Editing and posting will take time. So if you enjoy this? Please share! Thanks so much!


End file.
